The Legacy Lives On

As a follow up to my earlier post on Jackie Robinson, Here's to You, Mr. Robinson, I'm glad that I didn't gloat about the Phillies being rained out on the day of Robinson's anniversary celebration. I almost did because of their infamous mistreatment of Robinson after he integrated baseball.

I just found out that a former classmate of my daughter's and son of family friends was to be honored at today's game. As part of the Robinson day ceremonies, he was to be awarded:

[A] Jackie Robinson Scholarship for Philadelphia-area baseball players who display leadership both on and off the field and have at least a 3.0 grade point average. Matt Howard, a Phillies RBI participant who will be attending Marist College in the fall, is the 2007 recipient and will be recognized during the on-field ceremony.

See The Philadelphia Phillies.

As the Inquirer noted, Phils to give Robinson's breakthrough its due:

When it came to integration in the 1940s and 1950s, the Phillies were cellar-dwellers - the last of the National League's eight teams to use a black player.

Now, they're seemingly trying to make up for lost time.

Not only is the team planning an extensive celebration of the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier, the team continues its efforts to cultivate the game's popularity among African Americans in order to increase the fan base and lure talented black athletes back to the national pastime.

* * * *

Before Sunday's game, the Phils will introduce four members of the Philadelphia Stars, who faced Robinson when he played in the Negro leagues. Local Jackie Robinson scholarship winners will be honored (Penn's Stefon Burns, Temple's Deidre Little, and high school student Matt Howard, from the Phillies' RBI leagues), along with Jim Ellis, the coach who produced nationally ranked black swimmers and is the subject of the movie Pride. Donna Allie, an African American single mother who started a cleaning company that grew to more than 260 workers, also will be honored. (Emphasis added).

Kudos to Matt!

And speaking of the Philly Stars, the Negro League baseball team, I saw the mural honoring the team yesterday during my Mural Art Tour in West Philly.

Tags: Philly, Phillies, Jackie Robinson, baseball