Reds Announce Additional Plan to Honor Robinson

The Cincinnati Reds plan to honor Jackie Robinson by displaying his uniform number along with the team’s retired numbers at Cinergy Field.

The Reds plan to honor Robinson during a home series in mid-May. The club already has shortened the sleeves on its road uniforms in tribute to him.

Managing executive John Allen is considering putting a baseball with Robinson’s No. 42 behind the left-field wall. Replica jerseys with former manager Fred Hutchinson’s No. 1 and Johnny Bench’s No. 5 are displayed behind the wall.

“We’ll obviously be doing something to recognize him, but we’re not 100% sure how we’ll do it,” Allen said.

Baseball took an unprecedented step Tuesday night by retiring the Robinson’s number for all major league teams. Those who currently wear No. 42 can keep it for the rest of their careers, but it may not go to anyone else after they retire.

“It’s nice that baseball is trying to do something positive,” shortstop Barry Larkin said. “Now the story of Jackie Robinson will continue to be told. When someone sees No. 42 up there in the outfield, questions will be asked and the tale will be perpetuated. That in itself will be good.”

*

With the nation honoring Jackie Robinson as America’s first black major leaguer, Sanford, Fla., wants to apologize for a long-standing “stain . . . on our soul.”

More than 50 years ago, city officials forced Robinson out of an exhibition game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and its farm team to keep him from playing on the same field with white players.

Robinson stayed in the lineup for two innings and batted once before the police chief ordered the Dodgers to remove him from the field.

“It was a bad thing,” city commissioner Whitey Eckstein said Tuesday. “We shouldn’t have done it. We need to make it right with the Jackie Robinson family.”

For too long, the image of this central Florida community of more than 32,000 has been tainted by the incident, Eckstein said.

“We need to apologize for what happened because as long as that stain is on our soul, it hurts the city of Sanford,” he said.

Eckstein and other city officials aren’t certain how or when an apology will be made. Eckstein suggested the city invite Robinson’s widow, Rachel, to Sanford as soon as possible and express remorse publicly.

In 1946, Robinson wore the uniform of the minor league Montreal Royals, which played the Dodgers during spring training. Robinson was not allowed to dress with the team or stay at Sanford hotels with the other players. Instead, he boarded with a black family.

Before the game, residents told Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey that Robinson would not be allowed to take the field with white players.

Sanford was not the only city in Florida to snub Robinson. Jacksonville, DeLand and St. Augustine canceled games after learning Robinson was scheduled to play.

Games also were canceled in Syracuse, N.Y., and Baltimore.

DeLand Mayor Dave Rigsby said he was unaware Robinson was kept out of a game there.

“If that did happen,” Rigsby said, “we would owe his family more than an apology.”