LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is among the scheduled speakers for the Dodgers’ annual “team reflection” today on Jackie Robinson Day.
The Dodgers have been gathering at the statue on Jackie Robinson Day annually since 2021 to hear manager Dave Roberts and others talk about Robinson. In 2023, they began being joined by their opponent.
Sonya Pankey, Robinson’s oldest granddaughter, and Nichol Whiteman, the CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, are also set to speak.
Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars are also set to attend the reflection.
Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson, founded the foundation in 1973, the year following her husband’s death at 53. It provides four-year college scholarships to disadvantaged students of color.
The Jackie Robinson Foundation is among the beneficiaries of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, the team’s charitable arm whose mission is “to improve education, health care, homelessness, and social justice for all Angelenos.”
Pankey will throw the ceremonial first pitch.
Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars will make the announcement preceding every Dodger game at Dodger Stadium: “It’s time for Dodger baseball.”
Abdul-Jabbar was born in Harlem on April 16, 1947, the day after Robinson’s debut.
In a 2010 interview with ESPN, Abdul-Jabbar said Robinson was his hero and while he was in high school, and he received a letter from Robinson “telling me that UCLA would be a good place for me to go to school.”
In 1969, when the then-Lew Alcindor won his third consecutive national player of the year award as a Bruin, he was finally able to meet Robinson at an awards dinner.
“I was in awe,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “I was sitting with Jackie Robinson and Bill Russell and I was just in awe. I didn’t say much; I just let them say what they had to say.”
All players, coaches and managers will wear Robinson’s No. 42 for all of Tuesday’s major league games as they have done on each Jackie Robinson Day since 2009, with all teams using Dodger blue for their “42” jersey numbers regardless of their primary team colors for the fourth consecutive year.
All players, coaches, managers and umpires will wear caps with a “42” side patch.
A special tribute video, produced by MLB Network, featuring AJ Andrews, the former LSU and professional softball player who hosts the network’s Saturday morning show, “Play Ball,” will be shown in all ballparks on Jackie Robinson Day.
The video also will be played on MLB.com, MLB Social Platforms, MLB.TV and more.
The No. 42 was retired throughout Major League Baseball in 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s April 15, 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Robinson– who was raised in Pasadena and attended Muir High School, Pasadena City College and UCLA — went hitless in four at-bats in his major league debut, but scored what proved to be the winning run in Brooklyn’s 5-3 victory over the Boston Braves in front of a crowd announced at 25,623 at Ebbets Field.
Robinson played his entire major league career with Brooklyn, helping lead the Dodgers to six National League pennants during his 10 seasons and, in 1955, their only World Series championship in Brooklyn.
Robinson’s successful integration of Major League Baseball is credited with helping change Americans’ attitudes toward Black players and being a catalyst for later civil rights advances.