Jackie Robinson Day taken to its irrational conclusion: call everyone Jackie Robinson.

Read post: Jackie Robinson day: enough already! Monday, April 16, 2012

Jackie Robinson must be rolling over in his grave.  Even the day after the day teams that did not play on that day feel compelled to have every player wear number 42.  I had lunch with some baseball friends today and the subject came up and one said very solemnly that we should all remember what a great injustice Robinson suffered.  What?  Jackie was insulted but he got to play and those who had been denied were wronged but let's not equate playing baseball with real injustice like ... lynching.  Lynching is a terrible injustice.  Being excluded from playing in the old American League and the old National League was really bad but let's have some perspective.

Maybe that lack of perspective is what causes the current policy of the Major Baseball League (MBL), leaderless during the administration of Bud Selig.  The MBL has let this devolve into a pseudo religious ceremony.  Robinson has been described by his widow as a religious man but I'm guessing that he would be offended by the fake reverence of what has become an annual obligation for all MBL employees and related organization employees to babble on about something that was essentially over in a short time.  Robinson had indicated that he understood the prejudice of the southern players and others and that once they got to know him by playing against him they were pretty much OK with him.  They were all ball players, trying hard to win.

His is a great story, one which always appealed to me.  I always thought that Jackie Robinson was an American hero.  I still do.  Although his experience that first season in Brooklyn was made much worse by having Robinson be alone, the only black player on the Dodgers.  That seems to have been a stupid and unnecessary policy.  At least give him a black roommate, someone on the team who can share the burden.  Robinson's isolation makes it a better story.  As fiction it would be ridiculed as unrealistic.  As fact, it carries weight.  The irony is that the current MBL activities just turn me off.  They are so phony.

So, what to do?  We can wait for the sequel to the new movie about Robinson: 43.  Or we can view the old 1950 movie in which Robinson plays himself.  What, that's not sophisticated enough?  Not real enough?  Suppose we had a movie with Abraham Lincoln playing himself?  Not good enough?  Let's get a non-American to play Lincoln and go see that instead.  Much more real.

So let's make a real mockery of the MBL.  Call all the players Jackie Robinson.

Now batting for Arizona: Jackie Robinson.

Jackie Robinson is into his windup.  Jackie Robinson hits a ground ball to Jackie Robinson at short  who throws to Jackie Robinson at first base.  Jackie Robinson is out!

Next up: Jackie Robinson.