Texas Rangers to host Los Angeles Dodgers on Major League Baseball’s 2020 Jackie Robinson Day Celebration on Friday, August 28
Arlington, Texas — The Texas Rangers will commemorate Major League Baseball’s 2020 celebration of Jackie Robinson Day when the club hosts the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, August 28 at Globe Life Field at 7:05 p.m.
Jackie Robinson Day, which normally takes place each April 15th, will be celebrated throughout Major League Baseball on Friday, which is the anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963, as well as the date in 1945 when Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey met with Jackie Robinson to discuss his future in the big leagues. The August 28 dates is representative of both Robinson’s journey to break the color barrier and his life as a civil rights activist.
As has been the tradition since 2008, all uniformed personnel in the Major Leagues will wear #42 on Friday as a tribute to the man who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947.
The Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation and Germania Insurance are partnering to donate $42,000 to a number of organizations including The Jackie Robinson Foundation, Impact Venture, 100 Black Men of Dallas and Fort Worth, Interfaith Ministries, and the NAACP chapters of Arlington, Dallas, and Fort Worth.
The pre-game ceremonies will feature pre-recorded first pitches by Jonathan Kidd, a Dodgers Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar alumnus and Texas Rangers MLB Youth Academy scholar-athletes Gregory and Greylon Lawrence. Paul Rogers, who performed the National Anthem for the season’s second game on July 25, will return for a live rendition of The Star Spangled Banner on Friday night.
Rangers and Dodgers players and coaches are also collaborating on a video honoring the legacy of Jackie Robinson that will be shown pre-game on the Globe Life Field video boards. DoppelRangers that night will feature Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholars and Texas Rangers MLB Youth Academy youngsters.
On Thursday, Texas Rangers employees will have the opportunity to view the documentary The Other Boys of Summer to be followed by a Zoom panel discussion moderated by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick and featuring former Rangers Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins, Darren Oliver, and Bump Wills.
The Dodgers series concludes a seven-game homestand which begins with the Oakland A’s on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday August 24-26 at 7:05 p.m. and Thursday, August 27 at 5:37 p.m. The Rangers and Dodgers also play on Saturday, August 29 at 6:05 p.m. and Sunday, August 30 at 1:35 p.m.