Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

   Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier 67 years ago, was honored at every ballpark on Tuesday. During one celebration at MLB’s third annual Diversity Business Summit, Rev. Jesse Jackson praised Commissioner Bud Selig for the strides the sport has taken in minority opportunities over the past two decades. Currently, MLB sponsors 35 Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars, a charity benefitting education for gifted students.

   As a proud UCLA Bruin alumnus, I’m delighted to let the current baseball head coach offer this wonderful analysis:

   Selig points out that Robinson’s first game occurred more than a year before President Harry Truman desegregated the United States military, and seven years before the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that ruled state laws requiring segregated public schools were unconstitutional. An opening ceremony was scheduled for Yankee Stadium to unveil a plaque commemorating Nelson Mandela’s visit to the old New York ballpark in 1990. However, the Bronx Bomber game against the Chicago Cubs was rained out, and the ceremony, which includes Zondwa Mandela, a grandson of the late South African president, was pushed back until later this evening.

   Prior to last year’s 42, which chronicled the first year Robinson played in the Major Leagues, and featured Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, United Artists produced a 1950 biography that starred Jackie Robinson as himself. Principal photography for the movie took place in the off-season following his third season with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 2005, 20th Century Fox and Legend Films released a colorized version of the film, donating a portion of the proceeds to the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2014 at 12:50 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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