MLB Ready To Celebrate Jackie Robinson Day, All Uniformed Personal To Wear #42

By request of Commissioner Bud Selig, as Major League Baseball celebrates the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking its color barrier on Wednesday, all big league players and uniformed personnel have been asked to wear the late Hall of Famer's famous No. 42 on the field when the 30 teams celebrate the occasion.
The past two years, as the momentum to wear Robinson's number steamrolled through Major League clubhouses, Selig asked, but the act of wearing it was voluntary. Not so this year.

"April 15, 1947, is a day that resonates with history throughout Major League Baseball," Selig said. "With all Major League players, coaches and umpires wearing Jackie's No. 42, we hope to demonstrate the magnitude of his impact on the game of baseball. Major League Baseball will never forget the contributions that Jackie made both on and off the field."

This year's main celebration of Robinson putting on a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform in a regular-season game for the first time, thus integrating MLB forever, is being hosted at Citi Field, the new home of the Mets.

There will also be ceremonies in all the other 14 ballparks across the nation, with 62 Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars being honored.

Last year, 330 uniformed baseball personnel took the field wearing No. 42. Nine full squads agreed to wear Robinson's number: the Mets, Nationals, Dodgers, Cardinals, Athletics, Angels, Pirates, Rangers and Rays all wore the number Selig retired in perpetuity in 1997 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Robinson's debut.

Shea Stadium, in its final season, hosted the main event last year as the Mets shut out the Nationals, 6-0.

This year, the festivities will begin at 1 p.m. ET with the official dedication of Citi Field's Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which replicates the famous entry to Ebbets Field. That's the tiny, long-gone ballpark one borough over from Queens where Robinson went out to play first base that day in 1947. The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, and the grand old game was never the same.

Robinson retired in 1956, the Dodgers left for Los Angeles at the end of the 1957 season and the wrecking ball took Ebbets Field not long after. But the memories endure, and Robinson's contributions now are celebrated on an annual basis.