BOSTON – Armanis Romero couldn’t just let the No. 42 on his back be the only tribute he’d make to one of baseball’s most popular icons Friday night.
In a game Boston English honored Jackie Robinson – Major League Baseball’s first African-American player – by having the entire team wear his famous number on their jerseys, Romero (2-for-4) took it a step further when he smashed a walkoff, RBI single over the outfielders’ heads with two outs to finish off a 4-3 nonleague win over St. Mark’s.
The heroics for the Eagles (5-0) only added to his Robinson-esque stealing of home plate in the fourth inning, as well as taking over the mound in the seventh to pitch the final two outs just moments before he delivered the game-winner.
The white jerseys, custom-made with Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers font on the chest, were planned. The performance was a bonus.
“I mean, Jackie Robinson got to business. Today, I got to business,” Romero said. “It’s a day that’s pretty important to us. It’s a day that celebrates someone that opened the color barrier for us to play, (as well as) a bunch of our favorite players.”
Over the years, Eagles head coach Christian Ortiz has traveled across the country to visit a new MLB ballpark for their tributes to the former great on Jackie Robinson Day (April 15). Last year left a notable mark on him when he went to Cincinnati, where the Reds have a small museum dedicated to him in Great American Ball Park.
So much that he decided he wanted to bring the tradition to his baseball program for the first time, set to play the day before the MLB annually recognized the legend.
“It was something I wanted to incorporate, obviously being a program where it’s all Black and Brown kids, just the importance of who Jackie Robinson was and what he did for baseball,” he said. “It was just, why not incorporate (the tribute) here, in the city of Boston, where English High (is) the first public school in America. … It’s important (the kids) tribute to someone like him because someone like Jackie Robinson is why we’re playing in the Major Leagues. People they look up to as well. It’s good.”
Selling his team on participating in the salute didn’t take too much effort. His captains certainly know the significance of paying that respect, and even know what it does to represent Boston – a city filled with diversity – in the act.
“I’ll always be grateful for him for everything he did,” said Alonzo Garcia, who batted 2-for-2 with a walk, two stolen bases and a run. “Just for him being alive, existing, and doing what he wanted to do – not what others thought what he should do. … We should always say thank you and be grateful for him because if it wasn’t for him, none of us would be here right now.”
“We’re just happy that we can celebrate somebody who’s an icon to all of us, gave us a chance to have big dreams,” added Jordani Marcano, whose leadoff triple sparked the game-winning push in the seventh. “It’s great for the city of Boston, it’s a lot of inner-city kids that essentially put it on for the city. Our seniors, like (Dayton-commit) Justin Peguero are pretty known for the minority guys in the city.”
Ortiz hopes to make this an annual tradition, and also wants to organize something for Roberto Clemente – another iconic figure for players to look up to for his stardom and humanitarian efforts – in September.
