For today’s sports fans, it’s hard to imagine professional teams segregated by color. That changed 65 years ago when Jack Roosevelt Robinson, the son of Georgia sharecroppers, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American in major league baseball. American sports have come a long way since 1947, but maybe not far enough. This season, just over eight percent of professional baseball players are black. That’s less than half of what it was in 1959, when the last team was integrated. Are we living up to or failing Jackie Robinson’s legacy? Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin joins Jonathan Eig, author of “Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season” and editor-in-chief of ChicagoSide Sports, explains.
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