As Major League Baseball celebrates the 70th year anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, there are a ton of tributes to the American hero taking place around the baseball world. As has been the case over the past several seasons, each player on each team will be wearing Robinson’s No. 42 to honor the baseball pioneer.
Though, the Houston Astros have apparently taken to this to a whole new level. In the lead up to Saturday’s game against the Oakland A’s, Astros players can be seen wearing shirts with one simple term on the front, “equality.” On the back reads Robinson’s No. 42.
Astros hitting in shirts that say Equality on the front and 42 on the back. #jackie42 pic.twitter.com/xtHUljqq2x
— Julia Morales (@JuliaMorales) April 15, 2017
This is a tremendous way to pay respect to a man that did so much for the game of baseball and the larger society as a whole. Depending on how we interpret this, it could also be a statement about the perception that there remains a lack of equality in America, even 70 years after Robinson himself broke through the color barrier of a sport that denied black men equality for so long.