42-42=?

Yesterday, MLB commemorated the 69^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947.  Everything was ever so dutiful, as it was last year and all the anniversaries past.  The players all wore Robinson’s #42, and the announcers listed his accomplishments.  The NYT made sure to run a story on just how racist a bench jockey Phillies’ manager Ben Chapman happened to be.

And by being so dutiful to the letter of Jackson’s legacy, nobody to the best of my knowledge said one word about the possibility of women playing major-league baseball.  In the past week, the NYT did a story on the status of transgendered members of the armed forces.  If that, why not a story on women ballplayers? Or is breaking the gender line in baseball the kind of news that’s not fit to print?

Next year will mark the 70^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s feat.  I wonder what, if anything, will be different from this year.