Baseball Shouldn't Start Until Jackie Robinson Day

There is no figure in baseball history more important than Jackie Robinson. The racist color line that compromised the integrity and the competitive credibility of MLB until after World War II and forced the creation of Negro Leagues wherein players just as good were paid much less and treated as inherently inferior was a doomed idea from its inception; Robinson is not the reason it fell. He is, however, the man who broke through that barrier of bigotry with both dignity and unapologetic intensity.

It was he who was showered with violent epithets and threats of physical harm. It was he who weathered the abuse of a league not ready to face its own miserable villainy or accept that a seismic change had made its overdue arrival. Major League Baseball was a weak euphemism until Jackie Robinson took the field for the Dodgers. It was fraudulent and morally bankrupt. Baseball, in every important way, didn't start until Robinson asserted his right to play baseball with a bunch of White men, and immediately proved that he was better than nearly all of them.

In recognition of that reality, the league that now owes Robinson virtually all of its legitimacy with the American public should be humble enough to wait a little longer each year to launch its long season. We will, eventually, revert to the 154-game schedule Robinson's Dodgers played throughout his career, or scale all the way back to 144 contests, clearing more of the excess inventory from their lower-priced section and facilitating the full flowering of the massive playoff system the league long ago elected. That eliminates the need for regular-season baseball in March. Fans complain bitterly, every year, about the cold weather in which many early-season games have to be played. Injuries are a major storyline for the game, and pitchers who carry their teams through the 162-game marathon and finish with a long October sprint are at greatly increased risk.

All of these things can be alleviated, somewhat, by moving the start of the season back to mid-April. There are more good reasons to do it than there are not to do it. Still, I don't want us to lose sight of the main thing here. It's this: MLB needed Jackie Robinson more than Robinson (or any of his fellow Black ballplayers) needed MLB. That fact has gotten lost a bit, in the fog of time. Stories scrubbed of some of the hideous details for easier digestion and telling to children have left the impression that Robinson was allowed to play through some institutional benevolence, and that he needed the Dodgers to leave a glorious legacy in baseball. To the narrow extents to which those things are true, they're true only because of the pervasive, pernicious nature of structural racism in the United States at that time.

The league should, therefore, acknowledge its debt to Robinson, rather than congratulating itself for the legacy he had to take from it by force. Spring training can wait until near the end of February. We can all have a slightly longer offseason. The regular season can open with an annual festival in celebration of Robinson, and of the other trailblazers who joined him. If the wait is uncomfortable, or if celebrating Robinson, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Henry Aaron, and others at the expense of some fresh-faced rookie feels unfair, maybe we can use the occasion to meditate on the discomfort and unfairness of the way the game America called its own refused to call half its players its own, for the first half-century of its ascent to the pinnacle of the culture.

I'm glad, at least, that Bud Selig ensured the visibility and vitality of Robinson's legacy during his time as the acting Commissioner of MLB. It's the noblest piece of Selig's own legacy, after he turned his eyes from Milwaukee toward New York and that seat of power. I love seeing every player in baseball put on No. 42 each year. I think it would be tremendous, though, if that was the first number everyone donned every season. We should always celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, but we should also remember that it's not purely a joyous holiday.