When he watches television today from his Honolulu home, Jim Becker will see every major league baseball player wearing a No. 42 helmet decal in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

He will see "Jackie Robinson Day" celebrated at each of the 15 major league games and the Dodgers, Robinson's former team, all wearing No. 42.

But having covered the 1947 history-making event as an Associated Press reporter, Becker, a former Star-Bulletin columnist, said he will recall the striking sight of a solitary figure emerging from the home dugout at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to make a courageous stand against racism alone and unbowed.

"It was about an hour and a half before the game and the scene is absolutely seared in my memory of this very black man in a blindingly white uniform ... walking out of the dugout and onto the playing field alone," Becker said.

"I thought, this man is carrying the torch for fair play, for the whole American promise that we have just fought a war for — and he is doing it all alone.

"I'll remember the tingle that ran down my back when I saw that uncommon courage," said Becker, who chronicled Robinson's stride into history in the book, "Saints, Sinners & Shortstops." "The sight of this magnificent athlete walking out of that dugout alone, my admiration for him grew."

Becker, then 20, said, "Nobody in the crowd, and there were maybe 10,000 there at the time, said anything. There was no flashing (of photographers' flash bulbs), no cheering, nobody rushing to meet him. Nobody on the field said, 'Hi, Jackie.' I wondered if anybody would even warm up with him."

Several Brooklyn Dodgers had signed a petition days earlier against having Robinson on their team and 15 of the 16 teams had voted against allowing Robinson to play.

In time, outfielder Al Gionfrido would toss the ball with Robinson but it would be four more games before even the hint of camaraderie emerged as shortstop and team captain Pee Wee Reese finally put an acknowledging hand on his teammate's shoulder.

Robinson helped the Brooklyn Dodgers to the National League pennant that year and, in doing so, was named the rookie of the year. But by the time his Hall of Fame playing career ended in 1956, three of the then-16 major league teams still had not been integrated.

Becker covered wars and the Munich Olympic massacre in a journalism career spanning more than a half-century, but said the sight of Robinson taking the point on changing sports is the most indelibly etched memory. "What Jackie did that day will stick with me forever," he said.

Yet for all the sense of import that Robinson's debut carried, a reader had to look beyond the descriptions of the actual game to find a mention of Robinson's impact. Of the nine New York papers and the wire services that covered the victory over the Boston Braves, nobody mentioned Robinson's color until the third paragraph and most well below that.

"The consensus of writers was we felt to turn this into a media circus would be unseemly and definitely unfair. It was treated as just another opening day," Becker said.

"It was, oh, by the way, a black man played for the Dodgers and that's the way it came down.

"But we knew we were watching history."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.