Mariano “Sandman” Rivera retired
from baseball at the end of the 2013 Major League Baseball season. During
Rivera’s 18-year career with the New York Yankees he wore number 42. When this
number was retired across the league, Bud Selig informed the 13 players who
currently wore the number that they were allowed to finish their careers with
the number. Rivera was fresh off of his rookie year and he definitely felt the
pressures imposed upon him. “It was a little pressure, because I know the
legacy and the man that carried No. 42,” Said Rivera in a 2014 interview. “But I said, ‘Well, I’m going to take it as a
challenge, and give my best, so I can make Mr. Robinson proud.’ I took it
seriously”.
Robinson’s
impact has touched so many who play the game. Rivera would not have faced the
same struggle that Robinson did in the last forties. In fact Rivera would have joined the minority
of Hispanic players already in the league with little resistance. It is because
of this that some say players, like Rivera and other non-African American
baseball players, do not owe as much to Robinson. It is remarkable that there
are those who still do not fully recognize the contribution Jackie Robinson
made to the sport of baseball and the country. The integration of Major League
baseball allowed not only black men to play alongside white, but it also began
a movement within baseball to accept more races in the game. This movement
created an atmosphere within the game of equality and fair play that could not
have existed without Robinson.
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