While fans eagerly anticipate the official opening day of the 2025 MLB season, reporters, pundits, and experts like ESPN’s Jeff Passan are getting their ducks in a row to make sure they have all their boxes checked for the start of the six-month war of attrition.
And yet, for Passan, he found himself locked in a battle with a very different kind of foe when he found out that the Department of Defense had removed a section from their website detailing Jackie Robinson’s time in the United States Army. Taking to Twitter to share this news and boldly rebuff the Department’s decision, Passan pulled no punches, noting that nothing should be partiesn about Robinson’s life on or off the diamond.
“This used to be the URL for a story on the Department of Defense website about Jackie Robinson’s time in the Army. The story has been removed,” Passan noted. “The ghouls who did this should be ashamed. Jackie Robinson was the embodiment of an American hero. Fix this now.”
Unsurprisingly, this tweet got a lot of attention, with fans from all over going to the DOD’s website to see with their own eyes if Passan was correct. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to get the answer, as now, in place of a story breaking down how one of the most important figures in sporting history got his start, there is a simple four-word statement reading “404 – Page Not Found.”
Originally filed with the term “deisports” in the URL, this story was presumably removed because it highlighted Robinson’s story through the lens of “DEI,” which has been widely targeted by the current administration. Passan’s tweet points this out, and the post has picked up surprising traction, with big names like Adrian Wojnarowski amplifying the message to get it in front of even more eyes moving forward.
Will the story go back up? It’s hard to say, but when one of the biggest MLB Insiders in the game calls out his own government for trying to remove the legacy of one of baseball’s most important figures, it’s going to get fans talking both about Robinson’s legacy and how it should be remembered.
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