I hate it.  It’s stupid.  It’s contrived.  It’s another classic and regrettable case of grandstanding by both the league and the commissioner, complementing similar ostentatious displays put on for Mother’s Day (pink bats!), Father’s Day (baby blue wristbands!), and Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and 9/11 (Oakland wearing green, yellow, and bright red!).  These gimmicks serve only to cheapen the game, making a mockery of the solemnity with which it has been played for over a century.  (Just try and imagine Joe DiMaggio facing down Bob Feller with a pink bat in his hands.)

It wasn’t enough that MLB took the unprecedented step of retiring Jackie Robinson’s number across all of baseball in 1997.  It wasn’t enough that April 15 was re-christened “Jackie Robinson Day” within the league.  It wasn’t enough that the league decided to allow select players to wear Robinson’s number on his new holiday as a way of honoring him.  It wasn’t enough that an annual “Civil Rights Game” was created to celebrate the racial barrier-breaking exploits of pioneers like Robinson and Larry Doby.  No, none of that was sufficient.  The league had to somehow go even further, mandating that every player wear #42 to commemorate Jackie Robinson Day and, in the process, making a complete farce of the whole thing, leaving spectators and television viewers with no way to actually tell players apart.  It’s enough to make one think of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer, participating in a charitable AIDS Walk, is accosted by organizers who attempt to compel him by force to wear “the ribbon” like everyone else.

Good job, Bud!  Way to confuse and inconvenience the fans, as well as show complete disregard for team histories and traditions, for the sake of a cheap publicity stunt!

What ever happened to a tasteful patch on the sleeve or the side of the cap to mark special occasions?  Must we now turn ball games into conspicuous platforms for seemingly every social and political cause under the sun, completely undercutting the whole point of uniforms and uniform numbers to prove a point about how much we “care” and “remember” and “honor?”  Would it not be more fitting to honor the memory of Jackie Robinson with a simple uniform patch and by remembering to play the day’s game with the same trademark intensity Robinson did?

What’s more, everyone understands the importance of Jackie Robinson, but he wasn’t the only important person ever to play professional baseball, and singling him out for such excessive special treatment opens up a whole can of worms.  What about Babe Ruth, indisputably the game’s greatest player and its most important ambassador?  Shouldn’t he have his number retired across baseball and be honored with an annual “Babe Ruth Day” for his contributions to the game?  What about Roberto Clemente?  Isn’t he deserving of the same kind of treatment due to his Robinson-like importance within the Hispanic community and his important humanitarian work?

Not surprisingly and not without justification, supporters and family members have lobbied Bud Selig and the powers-that-be for Ruth and Clemente to be given the full “Jackie Robinson Treatment.”  The commissioner, however, has not been receptive to such requests, though he should be based on the unfortunate precedent he set with Jackie Robinson.  That he hasn’t marks him as a hypocrite, as well as a second-rate promoter.

MLB needs to stop fetishizing Robinson’s number ad absurdum and commemorate special occasions like Jackie Robinson Day/Mother’s Day/Memorial Day/Father’s Day/Fourth of July/9-11 in more reserved, tasteful fashion, showing proper solemn respect to both the subject of veneration and the game itself.  Jackie Robinson loved the game of baseball and always played it hard and with great respect–this is a man who opted to retire rather than accept a trade to the arch-rival Giants; I don’t hesitate to say that he would probably find the specter of every player on the ball field wearing the same number in “honor” of him tactless and abhorrent.