The universally recognized and celebrated defining moment in Jackie Robinson’s life is the moment that he stepped to the batter’s plate at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on April 15, 1947. That Robinson attained immortality by breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. The annual rite of sports passage in the decades since is to mark the opening day of the baseball season with glowing tributes, remembrances, and much pageantry about the day, Robinson, and how it and he changed sports forever.