America 250: Jackie Robinson
In 1947, Jackie Robinson made history by breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, becoming the first African-American player in the modern era. He was recognized as the Rookie of the Year in the same year he debuted and was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Butch Huskey, one of the last MLB players to sport the iconic number 42, has passed away at the age of 54. Originally, Huskey donned the number 10 with the New York Mets but switched to 42 in 1995, just two years before Major League Baseball officially retired the number across the league to honor Jackie Robinson.
Interestingly, when MLB made that move, players like Huskey, Mo Bourne, and Mariano Rivera, who had already been wearing 42, were permitted to continue using it as long as they played, no matter which team they were on.
The Mets shared the news of his death on their social media platforms.
Huskey began his MLB career in 1993, although he didn’t play a full game until three years later. In 1996, primarily playing as a first baseman, he achieved a .278 batting average and an OPS of .754. The following year, he improved significantly, posting a .287 average, an OPS of .822, a career-high of 24 home runs, and achieving 81 RBIs, which was also a personal best. Unfortunately, he faced a decline in his performance after that season and was traded to the Mariners during the next offseason.
His stint with Seattle was brief, as he was soon traded to the Boston Red Sox for the 1999 season. During that year, the Red Sox made it to the postseason as a wild card but fell to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, which was part of the Yankees’ run of consecutive World Series wins.
Huskey’s last appearance in the league was with the Colorado Rockies, where he wore number 35. Remarkably, he became the final player in Mariners history to wear the number 42, with only four others having worn it in the majors after him: Bourne, Rivera, Michael Jackson, and Jose Lima.
Robinson’s jersey number was formally retired during one of the games in which Huskey played against Robinson’s former team, the Dodgers, who later moved to Los Angeles.
