When Baseball Forgot Its Courage: MLB's DEI Capitulation

The sport that celebrates Jackie Robinson can barely bring itself to mention why he matters.

Baseball has always been my escape. For a few hours, I can put aside the endless political battles and just enjoy the simple pleasures of the game: the crack of the bat, strategic pitching changes, and the unique rhythms that make baseball so special. There's something soothing about settling in for nine innings, where the biggest controversy might be a blown call at the plate or whether your manager pulled the starter too early.

---

---

But sometimes the real world crashes into our sanctuaries, and that's exactly what happened recently when Major League Baseball quietly edited its Jackie Robinson Day announcement for 2025, changing the 2024 line “Major League Baseball aims to educate all fans about Jackie Robinson, his life's accomplishments and legacy, while spearheading initiatives that support communities and meaningfully address diversity and inclusion at all levels of our sport” to read, “Major League Baseball aims to educate all fans about Jackie Robinson, his life's accomplishments and legacy, while communicating his message at all levels of the sport.”

Yes, the sport that loves to pat itself on the back every April 15th for Robinson’s breaking of the league’s color barrier couldn't even bring itself to mention the color barrier in its press release this year (they did mention it on some other pages on the MLB site, however). The same MLB that sells #42 jerseys, that produces emotional video packages about Robinson's courage, that uses his legacy to bolster its image as a progressive force in American culture, now can't find the courage to use the words “diversity” or “inclusion” in its official communications.

Members of the Boston Red Sox display the number 42 in recognition of Jackie Robinson Day as starting lineups are introduced before the game against the Minnesota Twins on April 15, 2022, at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)

This isn't happening in a vacuum. Last month, Craig Calcaterra at his Cup of Coffee newsletter documented how the Defense Department deleted Jackie Robinson's page from its website and labeled the URL “deisports” — literally marking Robinson's existence as "DEI content" to be purged. The DoD's Pentagon Press Secretary, John Ullyot, initially responded with a statement saying, “DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military.”