A’s take 1st place with home win as MLB honors Jackie Robinson. ‘Super special’
April 15 is a day of angst for Americans who procrastinate on filing their income taxes, but in baseball, this is a day to celebrate and embrace.
It’s Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball, with all 30 MLB teams plus high schools and colleges across the country on Wednesday honoring the man who broke the color barrier in this sport on April 15, 1947, as he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
MLB retired Robinson’s jersey No. 42 in 1997 on the 50th anniversary of his historic debut — the first professional athlete to have his number retired league-wide — and has since 2004 recognized Robinson by celebrating his life, achievements and impact on the sport. This included the Athletics on Wednesday when they hosted the Texas Rangers for a shot at first place in the American League West at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.
The A’s won 6-5 on the strength of a pair of two-run home runs by Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom to win for the seventh time in their last eight games. Langeliers blasted a 467-foot shot off the top of the left field fence for a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, the longest homer in the bigs this season and the sixth of the year for the power-hitting catcher. Soderstrom’s homer to left came in the seventh inning.
At 10-8, the A’s are first place in their division, atop the American League West standings for the first time since June 19, 2021.
Fans before the game were handed green caps with Robinson’s famed No. 42 across the front, and the A’s and Rangers wore uniforms with Robinson’s number in Dodger Blue colors.
Players wore caps with 42 on the side along with Robinson’s image. A’s and Rangers players took batting practice hours before first pitch wearing warm-up shirts that read “Breaking Barriers.”
For A’s outfielder Denzel Clarke, Robinson stands as a lasting image of a persevering pioneer. Robinson faced searing racism during his playing career, including verbal taunts during games, stacks of hate mail and death threats. Robinson died in 1972 at age 53 from diabetes and heart disease.
Clarke, born and raised near Toronto, is the son of Canadian track and field star Donna Smellie-Clarke, who competed in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Clarke participated in most things athletic as a boy — track, volleyball, basketball, badminton, tennis — but not baseball until he was 10. He did not dabble in hockey or football; his mother feared concussions.
Clarke played collegiately at Cal State Northridge and was a fourth-round draft pick by the A’s in 2021. He’s now in his second MLB season and soaked in his first Jackie Robinson Day as an MLB player as his 2025 big-league debut came in May.
“Super special day,” Clarke said before the game while seated in the A’s dugout. “I’ve been saying this a lot, but it’s true: I wouldn’t be able to play in the big leagues without the path Jackie carved. So it’s a super special day for me, and I’m super excited to spend Jackie Robinson Day in the Big Leagues for the first time.”
A’s fifth-year manager Mark Kotsay, a veteran of 17 MLB seasons as an outfielder, said Jackie Robinson Day should be celebrated.
“If you think about what Jackie accomplished and what he went through ... I heard (Dodgers manager) Dave Roberts say it best: Jackie globalized the game,” Kotsay said. “No one can put themselves in his shoes and have to endure what he endured, but he endured it for the greater of the game and the greater of the game globally.”
The hope for more Black baseball players
Kotsay said getting more Black kids interested in baseball is a goal for all levels of baseball. But baseball isn’t easy to learn, to perfect, and for a lot of economically challenged youth in America, this sport can be pricey with equipment and travel teams.
“I grew up in LA, and I think there’s untapped talent that lies in the inner city that’s never given a chance to really have the tools it takes to start playing baseball,” Kotsay said, “I know that MLB has done a really good job of targeting that, and I know that we’re going to continue to grow.”
Said Clarke, the A’s outfielder, “More players are liking baseball at a young age, and we’re starting to develop, starting to get into it early, and we’re starting to see it on the back end.”
Clarke said highlight plays that make for viral social media clips can play a role in influencing youth on the excitement of making a defensive play to rob someone of a home run at the fence — like he did Tuesday in a 2-1 victory over Texas — or a slugger sending one over the fence.
“Having younger kids being able to see players like ourselves, it’s super exciting to put it in their hands. I want to help (influence) that.”
Robinson’s debut included teammate from Folsom
Robinson’s MLB debut 79 years ago also represented the big-league debut for third baseman Spider Jorgensen, who starred at Folsom High School and for Sacramento City College. Jorgensen died in 2003, three days after his 84th birthday and seven days after scouting a game for the Chicago Cubs.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Daily Bulletin decades ago, Jorgensen said, “I came to Ebbets Field on Opening Day, scared to death. I didn’t think I was going to play. I didn’t have any equipment with me. My glove, bats — everything went to (another park). Then Jackie comes over and says, ‘Here, use my second-base glove.’ So I used his glove and borrowed a pair of his spikes, and I’m in the lineup.”
Jorgensen went 0-for-3 with an RBI. Robinson also went hitless in three at-bats in his debut. The two first became teammates in 1946, in the minor leagues, and they wound up lifelong friends. Said Jorgensen years ago: “I got to know Jackie as well as anybody. You didn’t chum around with some guys. You didn’t room with them. There was a separation (between Black players and white then), but that’s the way times were. But most of the fans really thought Jackie was great.”
Jorgensen played parts of five big-league seasons, appearing in the 1947 and 1949 World Series. In the 1960s, he coached the Fair Oaks American League team in the Sacramento region to summer championships, including the 1967 club that included Del Campo High School star Dusty Baker, who throughout his MLB playing and managing career credited Jorgensen for his development as a player.
More Jackie Robinson ties to Sacramento
A decade before breaking baseball’s color barrier, Robinson became part of a historic night in Sacramento at famed Hughes Stadium on the campus of Sacramento City College.
In 1937 while competing for Pasadena City College, Robinson won the long jump at 22 feet, 6 inches in the first night track and field meet at the venue.
He later that season set the national junior college record at 25-6 1/3 before starring in multiple sports at UCLA.
This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 10:27 PM.