APRIL 2025 - JACKIE ROBINSON DAY AT LORENZI PARK

Join us at Lorenzi Park to take part in our inaugural Jackie Robinson Softball game on Monday, April 14th.   Jackie Robinson Day is celebrated in Major League Baseball every April 15th. But since April 15th is on a Tuesday, we're celebrating it the day before.

As we all know, Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31st, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. His middle name was in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt who died that month. 

At his High School in Pasadena, California, Robinson lettered in four sports, baseball, basketball, track and field and football. He also excelled and lettered in those four sports while attending UCLA.

After leaving UCLA, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1943, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. Robinson was then assigned to Fort Hood, Texas where he joined the 76th 1st " Black Panthers " tank battalion. On July 6th, 1944, Robinson boarded an Army bus. The driver ordered Jackie to move to the back of the bus, but he refused. As a result, Robinson was taken into custody by the military police. He was subsequently court martialed, but he was acquitted. 

Upon returning home in 1944 from the military, Jackie joined baseball's Negro Leagues and began playing baseball for the Kansas City Monarchs. In 1945, Branch Rickey, the General manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, invited Robinson to become the first African American to play with the all white Dodgers' farm team, the Montreal Royals. Anticipating the great adversity that Robinson would face as he integrated modern baseball, Rickey professed to Robinson that he needed a player who could bear the torment and was looking for a ball player with guts enough not to fight back.

On April 15th, 1947, Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field for his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the beginning of an unparalleled career in baseball. At the end of his Dodger career which lasted nine years, his record included a .311 batting average, 137 home runs, 734 runs batted in, and 197 stolen bases. In 1955, he helped the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees to win their first World series Championship. Robinson earned the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, Most Valuable Player Award in 1949, and in 1962, became the first African American inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame.

After baseball, Jackie Robinson was a leader in the Civil Rights movement. In addition, he served as Vice President for Personnel at Chock Full O' Nuts, becoming the first African American to be named a Vice President of a major American company. 

Robinson was an active member of the NAACP and was also a syndicated columnist for the New York Post and the New York Amsterdam News  He wrote columns on sports and family life. In 1964, Robinson co-founded Freedom National Bank in Harlem. In 1970, he founded the Jackie Robinson Construction Company, which sought to provide housing for low income people. 

On October 24, 1972, at the age of 53, Jackie Robinson passed away following his decade long battle with heart disease diabetes. 

Thank you,

MLK

Front Row - L to R.  Mike Flanman, Steve Iddings, Rod Adams, Bert Cochran, Rick Bass, Tom Mendez.   Back Row - L to R.  Glenn Brunner, Kyle Swensen, Charles Pickett, Brian Graham, Mark Fink, Mike Stater, Dewy James, Randy Crawford.   Not in Photo:  Willie Banks.

-Photo Courtesy of Jan Adams  

February 2025 - Drifters win Top Gun Winter Classic 60 AA Division. Champions! #1!

Congratulations!

Congratulations!