Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day on Sunday, the 71st anniversary of when he broke the sport's color barrier, and his daughter, Sharon Robinson, was at Citi Field to discuss her father's legacy.
Part of his legacy, she noted, was that it extended beyond the baseball diamond and into the Civil Rights movement where he was an active voice in the community _ which may resonate with athletes in the NFL and NBA who have led demonstrations against social injustice, but the MLB lacks such a voice.
"I don't think they have much choice," Sharon said about MLB players engaging in protests. "They are in the minority. In football and basketball where you have a group and you can take a group action. Baseball players, if they speak out individually, they could be the only African-American player on their team and it could be a difficult spot for them to be in."
While no one in MLB is kneeling during the national anthem, or has been as outspoken as NBA stars, Sharon added that baseball players are still making contributions to the African-American community in other ways.
"Part of the protests, in NFL, NBA, is how are we getting these proceeds in from games and funneling them into the African-American community?" she said. "So baseball players do that through their own charities or work within communities that they're playing. They're in a much more difficult position to do something collectively. They collectively acknowledge we need to put more effort into reaching kids with color, and at this point, that's as collective as we'll see from them."
The latter was the other aspect of Robinson's legacy Sharon expanded on _ paving the way for athletes of color to play professional sports. However, baseball has been struggling to generate interest within the African-American community in recent years, as evident by their lack of representation in the MLB.
The Mets, in fact, had no African-American players on the roster for Jackie Robinson Day. Dominic Smith, who was a product of MLB's RBI program, is on the 10-day disabled list.
Yet there is some reason for optimism.
Opening Day rosters this season saw an increase from 7.1 percent to 7.8 percent of African-Americans represented in the league.
Sharon said she is encouraged by the slight uptick and expects that it will continue to grow.
"I'm encouraged, not just by the uptick, but by the fact we are seeing some of the programs producing players going into the draft from our academies and our RBI program," she said. "I really do think that we should continue to see numbers rise. Most people feel we won't get to 18 percent, but look at the overall picture. It was a color barrier, not just African-Americans excluded from baseball. So if you look at that, the impact of his legacy is still strong within baseball."
