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Temple symposium honors Jackie Robinson’s 75th anniversary of integrating Major League Baseball

The baseball pioneer was remembered as an icon of the game who broke down barriers.

The Claire Smith Center for Sports Media presented the symposium, Jackie Robinson and the 75th Anniversary of the Integration of Major League Baseball. on April 8, 2022. Attendees watch an ESPN film on the Jackie Robinson legacy
The Claire Smith Center for Sports Media presented the symposium, Jackie Robinson and the 75th Anniversary of the Integration of Major League Baseball. on April 8, 2022. Attendees watch an ESPN film on the Jackie Robinson legacyRead moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Iconic sports figures gathered in person and over Zoom with students and faculty at Temple’s Student Center on Friday to reflect on the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the integration of baseball.

Five different portions — The Negro Leagues, 1947, Birth of the Golden Era of African Americans in the Major Leagues, Other Glass Ceilings Shattered, and Activism and the Athlete — split the symposium into diverse conversations.

“So much of what you’ll experience this afternoon was made possible by Claire [Smith],” said David Boardman, Klein College’s Dean, at the outset of the event. “This symposium was born out of Claire’s passion for telling Jackie Robinson’s story — both his own experiences and the opportunities he created for others by breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947.”

Smith, a Temple graduate and a former Inquirer columnist, has covered Major League Baseball for over 40 years, most recently as a news editor for ESPN. She is the first woman sportswriter to be honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and serves as co-director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at Temple.

Friday marked the first formal event for the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media since its introduction on Oct. 6, 2021. The event was sponsored by MLB, the MLB Players Association and NBC Universal. It highlighted the history of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 while chronicling memories of the Negro Leagues’ most notable players.

Temple’s newly organized Center for Sports Media was founded to prepare students for the fast-changing world of sports reporting, while providing a foundation from Smith herself, along with longtime Sixers announcer Marc Zumoff, and managing director of student media John DiCarlo.

Branch Rickey III, grandson of the late Branch Rickey, former president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Robinson, joined conference virtually with Zoom. Among the stories he retold was the famous conversation between his grandfather and Robinson.

Doing his best impersonation, he recounted the eldest Branch telling Robinson he wasn’t looking for a player who was afraid to fight back against brutal racist attacks, but a player “with guts enough not to fight back.”

Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, also joined virtually. He reminisced about James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell, who once ran so fast from first to third base that the opposing team stopped the game in protest. And how Leroy “Satchel” Paige’s age is still a mystery to this day, with a question mark etched into the birthdate of his tombstone.

Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker joined hours before his team was set to take the field in Los Angeles. The keynote speaker provided insight into Hank Aaron’s off-the-field experience with racial strife.

The second half of the panel series featured C. Vivian Stringer, the Hall of Fame Rutgers women’s basketball coach, Melissa Ludtke, an award-winning reporter at Sports Illustrated and Time, and retired sports editor of the Philadelphia Tribune Donald Hunt, among others. All spoke about their individual experiences in the fight for equal representation in sports.