Today is Opening Day — a day that brings back a lot of memories of my father Jackie Robinson.
They are memories that my mother and I carried with us when, last week, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited us to join them on a trip to Havana, Cuba. It was an experience of a lifetime. We were thrilled and honored to be in their company and to witness our President extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.
Our 48-hour itinerary took us through Old Havana, to a State dinner at the Palace of the Revolution, and to the El Gran Teatro de Havana for President Obama’s speech to the Cuban people. Everywhere we traveled, I was touched by the response of our Cuban hosts, who lined the travel routes and enthusiastically greeted the President and his delegation. We waved back, squarely meeting their sense of hope with our own. The scene struck me as a sign of the beginning of a changing Cuba.
One of the highlights of our trip was the exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National team at Havana’s festive Estadio Latinamericano.
"One of the things we share is our national pastimes—La Pelota. As the quote from Field of Dreams goes, 'the one constant through all the years. has been baseball.' That's as true in America as it is in Cuba. Whether it's the middle of an Iowa cornfield or the neighborhoods of Havana, our landscapes are dotted with baseball diamonds. Our kids grow up learning to run the bases and count balls and strikes. And many of our greatest ballplayers have taken the field together." —President Obama on this historic day in baseball: es.pn/1PpnWCI
Posted by The White House on Wednesday, 23 March 2016
It brought back very personal memories of my father, Jackie Robinson, talking about his trip to Cuba in 1947, when the Brooklyn Dodgers trained in Havana.
At the time, Dad was a member of the Dodgers’ farm team, the Montreal Royals. Branch Rickey arranged for him to fly to Cuba for an exhibition game, just a couple of months before he broke down baseball’s color barrier in the United States. To me, this connection to my father almost brought me to tears. I was watching a baseball game in the same stadium nearly seventy years later — and during another historic era.
Our parents raised my brothers and me with the understanding that the struggle for equality and social change was ongoing. As kids, we integrated our schools, marched alongside our parents in the 1963 March on Washington, and helped raise money for the Civil Rights Movement through a series of jazz concerts on our lawn in Stamford, Connecticut.
I wasn’t in Havana in 1947, but it was my great fortune to be there in 2016 — witnessing the early steps toward normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. As I watched President Obama and my mother embrace, I was overcome with gratitude and pride for the President, the people of Cuba, Major League Baseball, and the unifying game of baseball.
My dad once said, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” I am certain that the goodwill extended by this trip ultimately will impact the lives of millions. My father would be so happy that Mom and I were part of the story.
Sharon Robinson
Photo Credit: © 2013 Guillaume Baviere, Flickr | CC-BY