It's Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. From 1967, when the first Super Bowl was played in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, until the end of the 20th century, America's football season ended in January. It was then that baseball diehards would look to February's calendar where they'd written the magic phrase "pitchers and catchers report" denoting the advent of spring training in Florida and Arizona.
This year, at least in Arizona, pitchers, catchers, and their coaches, can attend Super Bowl parties, and -- if they are lucky enough to score tickets -- the game itself, which is being played Feb. 12 in Glendale. Over the years, the NFL has added weeks to the season. Greed is the motivation, of course, although mission creep is the result.
Nonetheless, us diehards still cherish February's arrival as heralding the time of year "when everything else begins again." And what better day to anticipate baseball annual renewal than Jan. 31, the birthday of Jackie Robinson?
I've been thinking about baseball's great race pioneer more than usual this year, because the man who introduced me to both the legacy of Robinson and the game of baseball is recovering from a pre-Christmas stroke. At 89, dad's recovery is proving difficult, but he's a fighter.
In the summer of 1950, when future White House correspondent Lou Cannon was 17 years old, he was one of two Nevada high school students chosen to attend Boys Nation, the American Legion's annual training session in civics. They traveled to Washington, D.C., by train in those days. Afterwards, Lou went on his own to New York.
The ostensible reason for that leg of the trip was to see some of his mother's relatives. The real reason was to see Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio play baseball. He saw Robinson play at Ebbets Field in a game against the Dodgers' primary rivals, the New York Giants. "Robinson was electric," my father later recalled. He stole a base, igniting the crowd, which seemed to follow every move he made on the field.
"There was an obvious chemistry with him and Pee Wee Reese," dad wrote me in an email a few years ago. "Otherwise, Robinson paid no attention to anyone except the pitcher when he was at bat or the hitter, when he was fielding. When he reached base, there was a gigantic roar from the crowd. He dominated the game just by being in it."
A post-script to this story came in 1964, several years after both the Dodgers and Giants had relocated to the West Coast. The scene was the Republican National Convention in San Francisco that would nominate conservative Barry Goldwater over the more moderate Nelson Rockefeller.
My father, then living in the Bay Area and working as a local newspaper editor but moonlighting for an out-of-state paper, was on the convention floor in the old Cow Palace, standing among the Arkansas delegation when Rockefeller made his famously defiant speech denouncing Goldwater's "extremism."
Jackie Robinson was with the Arkansans, too. Here's Lou Cannon's dispatch, from his home in Santa Barbara some 49 years later:
"The Arkansas delegates were mostly okay, but their alternates and the crowd were booing lustily. They hated reporters. But I noticed that no one was booing in the vicinity of Robinson, who was jumping up and down and landing athletically on the balls of his feet, while yelling, ‘You tell 'em, Rocky!' So I went over and stood next to Robinson.
"Robinson was in the Arkansas delegation because he'd received his floor pass from Winthrop Rockefeller, the state's governor and Rocky's brother. Most of the Arkansas delegates were for Goldwater, but they gave Winthrop a pass on the grounds of family -- and maybe also because he lavishly financed the delegation.
"I was there as a reporter (for the Pine Bluff Arkansas newspaper) but figured I'd never have another chance to meet Robinson so introduced myself after Rocky finished. I told him I'd seen him play and was a fan. Robinson courteously thanked me, started to walk away, then turned his head and said: ‘Wasn't that a wonderful speech?' I nodded in agreement.
"It was a good speech but in truth it was Robinson who was wonderful."
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.