As the 2025 regular season continues, here are three things for MLBTR readers to keep an eye on throughout the day today:
1. MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson Day:
Today is Jackie Robinson Day around baseball, which means all 30 teams will be wearing Robinson’s 42 on their jerseys and caps. The day commemorates the Hall of Famer’s historic breaking of MLB’s color barrier back in 1947 and celebrates his phenomenal career, which saw him win Rookie of the Year and MVP honors within his first three years as a big leaguer. By the time he retired following his age-37 season, Robinson was a .309/.411/.474 hitter across ten seasons with the Dodgers and had collected 1563 hits, 141 homers, and 200 steals across just 1416 games.
Aside from today’s uniforms commemorating Robinson league-wide, Jason Foster of MLB.com highlights a number of other events celebrating Robinson, including a minor league game between the Clearwater Threshers and Palm Beach Cardinals at Holman Stadium in Vero Beach, Florida, where Robinson once played Spring Training games with the Dodgers. MLB games around the league will also feature a pregame tribute video to Robinson produced by MLB Network.
2. Pirates, Mets IL placements incoming:
The Pirates and Mets are expected to make roster moves today after it was reported last night that Pittsburgh catcher/first baseman Endy Rodriguez and New York center fielder Jose Siri are ticketed for the injured list. Rodriguez suffered a laceration on his right index finger that requires stitches, while Siri is dealing with a fractured tibia.
For the Pirates, Billy Cook would seem like the most logical choice to help cover first base in Rodriguez’s absence, given that Joey Bart and Henry Davis are already on the roster. However, Bart is currently day-to-day with an injury of his own and Cook is hitting rather poorly at Triple-A to start the year. The same goes for non-roster slugger DJ Stewart, who was in the mix for the club’s first base job during Spring Training before ultimately failing to make the Opening Day cut. For the Mets, Siri’s departure could simply mean that Jared Young joins the roster as the only position player on the 40-man not already in the majors or on the injured list. If the club is looking for extra help in center, non-roster veterans like Rafael Ortega and Jose Azocar could be options.
3. MLBTR Chat Today:
Each MLB team is now around 10% of the way through their season, and some expected contenders like those in Atlanta and Baltimore have struggled while more surprising teams like the Giants and Angels have done quite well for themselves. There’s still plenty of baseball left to go. If you have questions about which starts to believe in or are already looking towards July’s trade deadline then MLBTR’s Steve Adams has you covered in a live chat scheduled for 1pm CT today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
DJ Stewart would fit perfectly with this team, he strikes out at an incredible rate
In sad news today, it has been reported that the Philly fanatic has been arrested by ice. Marco Rubio claims Rob Manford has no jurisdiction over this incident. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has assigned Marjorie Taylor Greene to fulfill the duties of the Philly fanatic at home games in Philadelphia since she doesn’t have to wear a costume.
A lot of words to tell a very bad joke, Al.
Speak for yourself, I enjoyed the reality, err excuse me, joke
That’s the sad part. You can’t differentiate between reality and a joke. Explains how people with dementia get elected to be President.
Do you actually know even one single person that thinks that’s amusing, or even coherent?
Harvard University gets it. Princeton University gets it people that stood up and said FU when Jackie Robinson was deleted by pentagon over DEI GET IT
“Howard University”..People like you apparently like and appreciate DEI. Everywhere, except your own homogeneous neighborhoods.
The supreme court of the United States gets it 9-0
yes, nothing says discrimination more than forcing higher education facilities to get rid of DEI policies
Nothing says discrimination more than having your anti-discrimination policy be to discriminate even more. Which is really all DEI is.
If you had an MRI in your life, Harvard University was the place where it was designed equivalent to Princeton University, where Albert Einstein school people to count .9-0 supreme court
So your statement says that Donald Trump supports DEI….. mayor Eric Adams New York City
Glad to hear that you agree with the Supreme Court in their rulings.
Give Trump credit. He has made bigotry “cool” again. Screw the bootlickers who are okay with that.
“Nothing says discrimination..get rid of DEI”..said the man who much prefers creating a caste system of lowered educational and employment standards, based on the skin colors of various applicants. Do get back to us, when you bring DEI to your own minority-free neighborhood.
Pure definition of lower education. Next time a family member goes to a local hospital has to get a blood transfusion or a ventilator to save their lives. Make sure you go to the part of the hospital identifies with your beliefs. Happy Jackie Robinson day.
NIL has allowed Jackie Robinson to be a relief pitcher at Austin Peay. Incredible
Wonder why Moses Fleetwood Walker gets no love for actually being the first black mlb player.
Or William Edward White, not only the first black to play in MLB, but also a former slave.
Jackie Robinson had a better publicist.
“Had a better publicist”…Maybe a better narrative too. The Hollywood MSM loves a narrative they can control, politicize and otherwise manipulate.
This is the first time I’ve heard that Jackie Robinson maybe wasn’t the first African American to play in MLB. It just shows how much the media mind controls the public.
I wasn’t aware that Branch Rickey was a journalist.
He’s the one who claimed and repeatedly that Robinson was the first black man to play baseball.
In the 40’s journalists basically reported what they were told
And Branch Rickey literally managed to tell MILIONS upon MILLIONS of other people in his lifetime, right, TheMan 3?.
Because the game broke him. He didn’t handle the racism as well as Jackie and had a very sad ending to his life post-baseball. It’s not the feel-good story Jackie Robinson is. The MLB would sadly prefer that you forget MFW.
Possibly because he played for the AA and that wasn’t considered a major league until 1969.
The American League Association was considered a “major league” at the time, before the official formation of MLB. No surprise, MLB has a good article about Walker.
milb.com/news/moses-fleetwood-walker
Curiously, his manager on the Toledo team where he played for one season was named Charlie Morton. Some guys never retire.
I’ve always have felt that this day should be used to honor each teams first black player (for those that have a history dating to around that time of course) Robinson was the first, but wasn’t the only one to have a hand in breaking the barrier. I’m sure that many more had there own fair share of the load and shouldn’t be forgotten to history
Schell – Great point! Actually both should be done by each team, honor Jackie AND the first for that team.
Nobody had it harder than Pumpsie, the last of the first.
From what I’ve read, Pumpsie Green never had any issues in Boston.
Celestino looks good as the Mets call up to play some center. Young and Ortega are injured in AAA.
I don’t know if this story is true, but I read long ago that the NAACP was lobbying for MLB to integrate years before Jackie Robinson–that in fact NAACP leaders demonstrated outside the hotel where owners were conducting the Winter Meetings in 1941. The account I read said all the other owners exited via a side door to avoid the NAACP contingent, but Philip Wrigley met with them. Reportedly Wrigley told them he sympathized with their cause and thought it righteous, but felt that white fans were just not ready for black players….He was wrong wrong wrong, of course, but at least he deserved credit for not slipping out the side door. He was a strange, uncomfortable man, probably somewhere on the autism spectrum, who was wrong about most things and right about a few during his long tenure as Cubs owner.
How do you know he was wrong in 41? Were you there? What is sad of course is part of our country’s history that hasn’t in part changed. It’s different today but there is still disgusting discrimination in 2025.
I think he was wrong in 1941, but the owners should have done the right thing and integrated then, and in fact much before. It took an innovator–and a much wiser baseball man, too–like Branch Rickey to meet the challenge. Bill Veeck was close behind.
I’m not sure how you can say he was wrong, if being right is defined by whether the fans were ready for integrated baseball. The fact that Jackie was hooted by fans and players years later suggests otherwise. Now, doing the right thing is another matter. Doing right isn’t subject to a vote or any other kind of popularity contest.
Some fans booed, but they sure came out. Attendance soared after the war. And within a season or two, whatever racist attitudes some fans had in other parts of their lives, the race of athletes was a non-issue.
The nation after the war was a very different place than it was before. Despite this, Jackie had issues with players and fans alike. His ability to block out most of this noise is a big part of his story and one of the reasons Branch Rickey chose him to be the first. Anyhow, I am putting on my #42 shirt and heading down to Dodger Stadium where everyone will be wearing 42.
I think Ortega is on the IL.
Either way, whoever really was the true first Black player to break the color barrier, in my mind, baseball didn’t really take off until Jackie made a career for himself and allowed full integration into the sport.
@Acoss1331
I’m not sure if that’s true. Baseball was the top sport in America for decades until football got broadcast on TV and then football took off. But I don’t think you can attribute it to one specific player making it more or less popular, though.
Baseball firmly owned this country well before Robinson and held it firmly till say the 70’s.. If anyone made baseball take off it was Ruth.. Robinson though did allow for a great wave of talent to have a rightful place in the game which of course significantly helped.
Perhaps I should rephrase my comment. In my mind, baseball didn’t matter until the sport was fully integrated, and Jackie pretty much paved the way for other Black players. The sport was already popular, Babe Ruth and other players took care of that.
Where’s the Babe Ruth Day?
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt
“Better to remain silent”..It’s also better to give real answers to honest queries, than it is to stand upon a soap box lobbing juvenile insults. Free speech is a real thing my friend.
I don’t know that the reply was challenging free speech. It’s just saying that the question, which of course can be asked, is an ignorant one (unlike those asking why we don’t honor other black MLB players who came before Jackie Robinson) likely better not asked since it is meant to provoke rather than actually ask whether we rightly honor MLB players who impacted the game.
It is ignorant (even if it’s honest) because the worlds that Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth inhabited were incredibly different. To say that Babe Ruth, who played the game better than anyone in his time yet did so in a culture that fully accepted and celebrated him, should be celebrated as much as MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson, who again played the game better than anyone in his time and did so in a culture that fully rejected him, is not a serious question. We have a hall of fame that celebrates incredible players. We have a day set aside for a person who was incredible in the face of challenges that most of us never have to comprehend, much like we do for Memorial Day, Veterans Day, or other days that celebrate courage and achievement, because it calls us to remember and do better.
“I don’t know that the reply”..challenge free speech..it is ignorant”…Insulting, labeling or demeaning someone for merely asking a question in good faith, is always a “challenge to free speech”.
Ruth saved baseball. What he did couldn’t have been done by anyone else in that period. Nobody is bigger then the game but I would say he came the closest. People that don’t follow baseball that aren’t even from America likely know who Babe Ruth is.
Robinson was a very good player, not the best of his era, but still very good. I believe that his career gets boosted though because he was the first. Something that if not him someone else would have done. Might not have happened as quickly, make have been worse might have been better but it was inevitable.
Robinson when you factor in the civil rights movement was more important to humanity. Ruth was massively more important to the game. I don’t believe it would have survived the Black Sox scandel without him.
I also don’t feel any player should have a league wide day or have numbers retired by every team. Always have felt that it was stupid to have a number reitred for a player who didn’t spend any time with the team.
If Babe Ruth “saved” baseball then, my gosh, what did Ali do? You want to talk about someone who is known around the world? When do we celebrate Ali day? Hmm?
I think it’s was not so much an ignorant question as a disingenuous one, a rhetorical one: it was facetiously asked to make a point, a bad and fallacious point. It is comparable to the question that is often asked by homophobes: “Why don’t we have Straight Pride Parades?” People who ask that, or the Babe Ruth question, don’t really want an answer; they just want to express hostility toward a minority group or people who support minority groups. They want to express hatefulness. They have a constitutional right to do that, but probably the question should have simply been ignored.
@mlb fan: If it was a sincere question, you are right. I think it was a sarcastic question.
You can’t seriously think that was an honest question my friend, and I didn’t lob any juvenile insults I just quoted Abe Lincoln.
100%. It’s a coward being a coward.
I still feel like Jackie Robinson did more for the sport than Babe Ruth did, schellis 2.
so says the guy who insulted another over his joke
mlb fan
Free speech is a real thing my friend.
======================
But isn’t Wire’s response an example of free speech?
Just as a point of order, nobody really knows who first said “it is better to be thought a fool,” etc. This line is often misattributed to Lincoln, Mark Twain, and other famous wits, but without any documentary evidence that any of them ever said it. The origins of this truism actually go back to the Bible.
Interesting
“Babe Ruth Day”…As a great fan of the late, great Babe Ruth, he’s actually interwoven into American culture and is most likely bigger than just a “day”.
“The Babe” is a longtime part of America’s culture and is celebrated year round in magazines, movies, radio, internet, historical monuments, television and other ubiquitous American pop culture.
I like this idea. Every player has to consume six hot dogs and two beers and try to play the game later. I’m sure they’ll find it harder than they thought it would be.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=7utVA0krAWI
And yet, only 6% of the players are from a Black background as of the 2025 opening day.
mlb.com/news/mlb-diversity-shows-increase-in-black…
Between 1972 and 1996, Black players consistently made up between 16% and 19% of MLB rosters but was been on the decline since then.
sabr.org/research/article/baseball-demographics-19…
Yes, a sad reality. I’m glad I grew up in the 1960s and got to see greats like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Willie Stargell, and Bob Gibson.
@bbgods
That’s an impressive group of players there. Must have been a treat to watch them play during their prime.
It certainly was. Also got to see the 1969 Mets in the World Series, led by WS MVP Donn Clendenon. And the amazin’ Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, of course.
Ernie Banks and Billy Williams here in Chicago, among others.
There’s just as much or more money to be made playing basketball or football now. Options….
Sadly, there are less Americans total playing baseball these days, but especially black players. That’s why MLB, due to the efforts of Joe Morgan, started pushing the RBI programs.
“Sadly, there are less Americans total playing baseball these days, but especially black players…” first of all, what’s with the ‘sadly’ part? And it seem like there’s a good amount of American-born MLB players still playing.
@steinbrenner A baseball fan thinks it’s sad that fewer young people play the sport they admire. I think most on here would agree
Really ?
Any sport wants the best athletes playing their game. The best athletes aren’t just white Americans. That’s why it’s sad. It’s not complicated.
Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first Black player in a major league, but he didn’t break the Gentleman’s Agreement to keep out dark-skinned players.
It was because of Walker and others’ presence that “leaders” like Cap Anson instituted the Gentleman’s Agreement in the first place in the late 1800s.
Robinson broke the color barrier and did it so successfully on and off the field that we have an integrated MLB.
Well, said. Walker also played for the AA which wasn’t even considered a major league until 1969. White on the other hand did play in NL however he only appeared in one game, and was relatively unknown until 2003.
According to family lore, my father saw Babe Ruth play at Fenway Park. He also saw Jackie Robinson play at Ebbets Field. He was a Brookline High School graduate. Then he worked in Brooklyn. It all makes sense to me.
As a jazz musician, I am aware of the famous Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert. Jackie credited that event with helping to slowly open the door. It only makes sense for the best of the best to be playing in the best environments.
Was Murakami in the article, or did I miss something?
No, he isn’t. It’s negativity spillover from another article.
Should we be celebrating Jackie Robinson Day?
OR
Institutionalized Racism Day?
OR MLB Hypocrisy Day?
OR How Bud Selig, Manfred and A’s Owner Fisher
screwed legendary African American Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson
out of Ownership of the
Oakland A’s?
OR How the MLB ” White Old Boys Network”
Refused to allow the Sale of the A’s to Reggie Jackson?
Or how the MLB, 2 MLB Commissioners, Giants Ownership, and A’s Owner John Fisher ran the A’s into the ground financially, block viable new stadiums in the SF Bay Area and forced the A’s to move?
(Cue the Movie “Major League”).
OR MLB subsidizing an incompetent MLB Owner John Fisher
with perhaps a billion plus dollars: revenue sharing in one of the largest, richest sports markets in the entire country, waived team relocation fees and added stadium construction contributions in LV?
Has Jackie Robinson Day just become an MLB “token smokescreen”
and Public Relations gesture that covers up for
lack of African American Ownership and depriving African Americans
seats at the Ownership and Decision-making tables in MLB?
youtube.com/watch?v=EVlXbORV3_Q
….
>MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson Day
Der Führer has not proclaimed this to be verboten?
Hold on, he’s putting for double eagle on the 18th hole.
Actually, Jackie Robinson was UNDERRATED as a player. He had two seasons when his WARP was the best in the League; the bigots in the Army and barred by the “Unwritten law,” his overall statistics would have been even better.
Of course, he was serving his country for some of that time, many of whom, including his officers hated him. But he served and did not claim bone spurs for a deferment.
Jackie Robinson is a true American hero. Period.
White people struggle with acknowledgment of past wrongs everywhere. It’s the same down here in Australia. We do this thing called “welcome to country” before any significant event. An aboriginal elder from the tribe that was the traditional owners of the land the event is being held on, takes the stage and welcomes everyone. No biggy. Bit of unification. Takes a minute or so. All good.
Yeah, nah…..certain white Australians get all pissy about that minute or so of inconvenience and want it abolished. “Why should we be welcomed to our own country” they cry. It’s pathetic.
“White people struggle”…Liberals are still trying to find the right balance and tone in their corporate sponsored racist propaganda, right foppert?
No idea about that. I do know that white people suck big time when it comes to acknowledgement and reconciliation of past racial injustices. We are all too self entitled to take responsibility for the wrongs perpetrated by our predecessors. Its weak.
I take your point, fan, though I don’t agree with it–but I don’t follow the “corporate sponsored” part. What corporate sponsors are you referring to? (sincere question, no sarcasm)
Yet the snowflake with in you can’t handle a black person having a day of recognition, and it’s your totally unique take that has nothing to do with billionaire dbags telling you how to think. Can you just keep your idoitoc takes on twitter and let the rest of us enjoy baseball.