Sooo….more people wearing Jackie Robinson’s #42 on the annual Jackie Robinson Day will kill the meaning? That’s apparently what Torii Hunter thinks.
This is what Los Angeles Angels outfield Torii Hunter said, to USA Today: “This is supposed to be an honor, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you’ve got entire teams doing it. I think we’re killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie’s number, not just because it looks cool.”
Torii, you are honoring a guy who broke color barriers and transcended sports. This isn’t the same thing as too many people wearing flannel shirts and Pearl Jam t-shirts back in 1993.
Snappers… I came across this online about an hour ago and almost e-mailed the article to your attention, Micah (I see now that it was already on your radar).
If the responses I read on Yahoo!Sports are accurate, this Torii Hunter nugget is nearly a year-old (according to a respondant, Hunter said this last April around the time of Jackie Robinson Day).
This story has another, “sexier” (by American media standards) dimension… one that involves last season’s Houston Astros’s showing team-wide recognition of Jackie by having all 9 players wear the # 42 on Jackie Robinson Day ’07 (despite not having an African American on the roster–I don’t think being a black Latino counts).
Let’s all do our part as Americans right now concerning Torii Hunter and his opinions… everyone immediately STOP concentrating on honoring Jackie Robinson and what his accomplishments stood for, and START focusing on the color and ethnic background of which MLB players are making a decision to honor Mr. Robinson.
Like around the Martin L. King, Jr. Holiday this year when the presidential candidates had their MLK pi$$ing contests…. let’s all get “Red, White, and Blue” and concentrate on the melanoma that divides us by the appearance of our skin color instead of concentrating on the substance and merits of the people beneath the skin.