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A GoFundMe campaign to replace a statue of Jackie Robinson stolen last week from a baseball complex in McAdams Park in Wichita, Kansas has raised over $185,000 in just five days. The amount is more than double the $75,000 the statue was estimated to have originally cost when it was first erected in 2021 by the League 42 Foundation, a nonprofit introducing baseball to youths in Wichita. The largest donations are reported to have come from Major League Baseball, according to foundation executive director Bob Lutz, and from an anonymous former MLB player, according to Wichita police chief Joe Sullivan....

Tim Anderson accused Josh Donaldson of making a racist comment on Saturday that nearly ignited a benches-clearing brawl, but the Yankees third baseman said he believes the White Sox shortstop took his words the wrong way. After the Yankees’ 7-5 victory at the Stadium, Anderson said Donaldson used the phrase, “What’s up, Jackie?” multiple times to him during the game. Donaldson’s response was that he has jokingly called Anderson “Jackie” (as in Jackie Robinson) in the past because the infielder referred to himself in 2019 as “today’s Jackie Robinson.” “He just made a disrespectful comment. He was trying to call...

A Purdue University professor of women's studies drew criticism for saying transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas should be celebrated as a 'trailblazer' in the same way as Jackie Robinson and that her achievements are good for women's sports. Cheryl Cooky - Purdue professor of American studies and of women's, gender and sexuality studies- claimed in an NBC op-ed piece that Thomas' victories should be highlighted as a historical first alongside Jackie Robison, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

If Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus no longer pass woke muster in Boston, then it’s time for the Kennedys to go. And everything with their names plastered on it — the JFK Library and JFK federal building, his statue at the State House, the Kennedy School of Government across the river, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the Edward M. Kennedy Whatever They Call It, etc. Everything must go! Profiles in Courage? The Kennedys were more like Profiles in Caucasity, as that woke Harvard gal said this week before she too got canceled. Let’s start with President Kennedy. Just for starters, he...

He was born 100 years ago in a red-clay corner of Georgia, though for many Americans, Jackie Robinson burst onto the stage fully formed in 1947, a 28-year-old rookie in Dodger flannels. That’s the enduring image, the Robinson captured on film at Ebbets Field and fixed in the national imagination: the silent but dynamic hero, broad-shouldered and trim, shattering the color barrier as he ropes another liner, dances off third or hook-slides home in a cloud of dust.

Assessing President Obama's legacy, the panelists on today's Morning Joe seemed in competition to outdo each other with misplaced praise. Historian David Maraniss led off, calling Obama "the Jackie Robinson of American electoral politics." Next up was Joe Scarborough, who upped the ante by placing Obama in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr. Batting clean up, Walter Isaacson hit one out of the hyperbole park, claiming that "Obama will go down as one of the great presidents we have ever had." View the video here.

Last summer, the Anderson Monarchs, the Philadelphia baseball team that became famous a year earlier when it made the Little League World Series behind pitcher Mo’ne Davis’s firepower, barnstormed through the South. They played baseball, and they also toured sites significant to the civil rights movement as a nod to the team’s heritage — it is named, after all, for the Kansas City Monarchs, the Negro leagues club for which Jackie Robinson once played. “I stood where Martin Luther King and John Lewis stood,” wrote outfielder Myles Eaddy on a team blog after a visit to Selma, Ala., adding, “It...

Philadelphia is officially apologizing to Jackie Robinson for the shameful way he was treated in the City of Brotherly Love. The City Council passed a resolution Thursday naming April 15 as a day to honor Robinson’s achievements and to apologize for the racism he faced while visiting Philadelphia in 1947. …

The Dodgers are finally going the statue route at Dodger Stadium and on Tuesday announced the first would be of Jackie Robinson. The Dodgers said the statue will be 9 to 10 feet tall and located at a stadium site to be determined during the 2016 season.

JRW Supporters Suggest Decision To Take Title Racially Motivated February 11, 2015 2:58 PM (CBS) – There are accusations that racism was behind the decision by Little League International to strip the Jackie Robinson West team of the national title over cheating by the adults who run the team. “We know that we’re champions, our parents know that we’re champions and the team’s parents know we’re champions and Chicago knows we’re champions,” said JRW catcher Brandon Green. Green said the players did nothing wrong as he stood with his mother, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Fr. Michael Pfleger at the headquarters...

Yesterday wasn’t just tax day, it was the 67th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. For those games not washed away by rain or snow, teams wore #42 jerseys in his honor. ESPN, as usual, used the anniversary to lament the dwindling number of black baseball players. The number of blacks playing major league baseball has gotten extremely low in recent years. It goes right along with a massive decrease in the number of black kids playing baseball and going to baseball games. In many ways the decrease in black interest...

NEW YORK -- Employees of the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones, a New York Mets affiliate, arrived at work Wednesday morning to find a swastika and racial and anti-Semitic epithets painted on a statue of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese that is on display outside MCU Park. ... "This is being treated as a bias crime," detective John Nevandro of the 60th precinct said in a statement. "Hate Crimes will investigate the incident."

As expected, the media has crowned Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player, the new Jackie Robinson, and the Human Rights Campaign has called Collins a “hero for our own times.” His actions were deemed worthy of a personal phone call from President Obama, who told Collins that he “couldn’t be prouder.” Without disparaging Collins personally (I understand he had a great reputation among his teammates), here are some reasons why he is absolutely not the new Jackie Robinson. When Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, there were no black equivalents of prominent and influential gays and lesbians...

Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey first met Jackie Robinson on Aug. 28, 1945. Rickey told Robinson that he wanted to sign the 26-year-old ballplayer and break the national pastime's color barrier. But for him to succeed, Rickey said, Robinson couldn't respond to the indignities that would be piled on him: "I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back." Rickey then opened a book published in the 1920s, Giovanni Papini's "Life of Christ," and read Jesus' words: "But whoever shall smite thee on the cheek, turn to him the other also." Robinson knew the Gospel and knew...

Is anyone planning to see this? Has anyone already seen it? If so, what did you think of it? Reviews from Metacritic Review from The Orange County Register: '42' swings for the fences, but it's one, two, three strikesRotten Tomatoes ratingIMDbWikipediaOfficial site

Harrison Ford isn't the chattiest celebrity working the press circuit. Never has been. This reporter once met Ford at a White House Correspondents Dinner party and asked him three questions--Ford responded with three one-word answers. Pepper him with questions about social issues, though, and the man known to millions as Han Solo and/or Indiana Jones gets downright gabby. Ford, who once had his chest waxed to raise awareness of rainforest issues, told a reporter quizzing him about his new film 42 that Jackie Robinson's role in breaking baseball's color barrier reminds him of the current same-sex marriage argument Do you...

Dozens of D.C.-area students were invited for a frank conversation about race Tuesday at the White House with Michelle Obama, Harrison Ford, and other members of the cast and crew of "42," the soon-to-be-released film about Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball. "I know I was mad just watching the movie," the first lady told the 80 students assembled in the State Dining Room, as Robinson's widow Rachel, who is 90, sat behind her. "It would have been easy for them to get mad or to give up. But instead, they [met] hate—they met hatred...

One of the reasons that Branch Rickey, a Republican activist, selected Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in major league baseball was their compatible political beliefs. It is beyond dispute that Robinson was a Republican. Jackie Robinson campaigned for Richard Nixon against John Kennedy in 1960. After Nixon was defeated for governor of California in 1962, Robinson wrote to console the future Republican president: “The only regret I have in supporting you twice is that I was unfortunate not to have been able to help more than I did. I am sorry also that most Negroes were unwilling to...

Celebrity and entertainment correspondent Tom Murro says that baseball legend Yogi Berra has a unique gift for President Barack Obama. As Yogi would say, "It ain't over till it's over," and the Hall of Famer is still going strong. Yogi Berra, who now lives in Montclair, New Jersey is an 15-time All-Star and three-time winner of the American League’s Most Valuable Player award as a catcher for the New York Yankees. Berra, who obviously has a sense of humor, was right on the money when he famously stated that “baseball is 90% mental — the other half is physical.” Celebrity...

The Leftwing Blogs and News Sites are burning up with a "gotcha" on Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. The RNC's new website was launched on Monday morning. There were some glitches. This led Leftwingers to scrutinize the entire site top-to-bottom. One of the talking points they came up with, was that "Jackie Robinson was not a Republican," as the site claimed in the GOP Heros section. Like all good sounding internet memes it's since been picked up on every leftwing website imaginable. But there's a problem. The meme is a complete and utter lie.