Today, April 15, is Jackie Robinson Day around Major League Baseball. On this day we honor Jackie Robinson for being the first black man to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball while defying staunch racism and paving the way for diversity and inclusion in the game of baseball.
The Cardinals followed suit by wearing Jackie Robinson inspired uniforms. Here’s what I noticed from watching the broadcast tonight…
The Cardinals had a new Jackie Robinson logo on the sides of their caps, which features a large 42 with the words “Breaking Barriers.”
The Cardinals wore their traditional home white uniforms, except that the front numbers were removed, and the back numbers were a large blue 42, Jackie Robinson’s number.
As for the socks, in years past Stance has rolled out some elaborate designs that include the Jackie Robinson 42 logo, Jackie Robinson’s signature, an image of Jackie Robinson, or some combination of all of three. This year it appeared the players were all wearing plain blue socks. I went to Stance’s website to see if I could get some up close product photos of these socks, but I found no mention of Jackie Robinson in a search term. Which is even stranger because here’s last year’s Jackie Robinson socks still for sale on Stance’s website.
This is very peculiar, because MLB and all of their garment companies, Nike, New Era, and Stance, all roll out elaborate and over the top designs for caps, jerseys, and socks on these special occasion games. So what is different about this year? It seems that Major League Baseball is spinelessly bowing down to executive orders, and has erased the mentions of diversity and inclusion in their Jackie Robinson press release this season. So not only is Major League Baseball now censoring words and language, it would appear they are also censoring imagery for on-field uniforms and garments. Not a good look!
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Cardinals Uniforms & Logos 