Ten years after Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson’s #42 Jersey for all MLB teams, someone’s going to wear it again. Ken Griffey Junior. (yes I know Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera wears #42)
On Tuesday, Griffey spoke with Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and received permission to wear the number on the 60th Anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier. The Reds will play the Cubs that afternoon at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
MLB Commisioner Bud Selig apparently loved the idea and let it be known that any player who wants to wear #42 on April 15 could do so. Could you imagine a couple #42’s on the same team that day? Well get ready because the ballclub that started Robinson to break the color barrier,  the Dodgers, will have every player wear #42 on Jackie Robinson Day.
… the Dodgers have chosen to have every player on the club wear that number for their nationally televised home game with San Diego that night.Â
“Jackie Robinson was a Dodger,” team president Jamie McCourt said. “The most fitting tribute the Dodgers can pay to him is for our entire team to wear his number.”
This is one of the few instances where MLB consistently trumps the NFL. When MLB players or teams want to honor someone or something (like the Brewers and their Cerveceros jerseys or the NYPD and FDNY caps during a Yankee game after 9/11), the league almost always supports them. In many cases the league initiates it – like the Pink Bats to promote Breast Cancer Awareness last Mothers’ Day.Â
Whereas in the NFL, the uniform police were out in full force when Jake Plummer wanted to remember Pat Tillman, when Peyton Manning wanted to wear black shoes to honor Johnny Unitas, or Corey Dillon when he wanted to switch his uniform number to 34 in honor of Walter Payton.
 We’ll do something for Jackie Robinson Day here at HomerDerby.com too.
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