State Assembly Votes to Name Portion of 210 Freeway After Hometown Hero, Jackie Robinson

The state assembly voted Monday to rename a portion of Interstate 210 after Pasadena’s hometown sports hero, Jackie Robinson, the legend who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier back in 1947. If the bill passes the senate, the stretch of highway between California Route 2 and Orange Grove Boulevard will be called the “Jackie Robinson Memorial Highway.”

“It’s only fitting to honor Jackie Robinson by naming this stretch of highway near the home he grew up and lived in,” Assemblyman Mike Gatto of Glendale said in a news release. “Jackie Robinson is not only an inspiring figure to us for his accomplishments in athletics, but also as a civil rights-era trailblazer who advocated for social change.”

Many Dodger fans take that portion of the freeway to watch the games in Chavez Ravine. Gatto co-sponsored the bill with Assembly member Chris Holden of Pasadena.

The bill, titled Assembly Concurrent Resolution 197, passed the assembly unanimously, and now it heads to the senate where the upper house will vote on it later this month, according to Gatto’s staff.

Born in Georgia, Robinson’s family moved to Pepper Street in Pasadena when he was just a year old.Robinson attended John Muir High School, where he lettered in baseball, football, basketball and track. He would continue to excel in all four sports throughout his amateur career. After graduating Muir,Robinson went on to Pasadena City College (then called Pasadena Junior College), where, as well as playing four sports, in 1938 he received the school’s “Order of the Mast and Dagger,” awarded to students with outstanding performance in academics, athletics and citizenship.

After graduating Junior College in 1939, Robinson went on to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he became the first athlete in the history of the school to letter in four sports. After serving in the military during World War II, Robinson began his professional baseball career with the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs in 1945.

Two years later, after a brief stint in the minor leagues, he and Brooklyn Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey struck the greatest blow for racial equality in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Jackie Robinson was able to bridge a cultural divide though his skill set, but more importantly through his courage, belief in himself and determination to succeed,” Holden said in a press statement. “Naming a portion of the 210 that includes a bridge over the Arroyo Seco is one way we can honor his legacy.”