Baseball legend Jackie Robinson received a Hollywood-level tribute from fans of his former team last Tuesday. Before the MLB All-Star Game at Dodgers Stadium, actor Denzel Washington remembered Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, on the 75th anniversary of his inaugural season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Washington pointed out where Robinson’s MLB career began: Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn, New York, home of the Dodgers before their move to Los Angeles in 1958, saying, “When Jackie Robinson stepped onto a Major League Baseball field for the first time, armed with supreme talent and unshakable character, and wearing a Dodgers uniform, he changed the game of baseball and so much more.”

Washington continued, “He said that life is not a spectator sport, and he lived that motto to the fullest.” Robinson died in 1972 at age 53. The actor also celebrated Robinson’s activism and his many pursuits outside of sports. Citing Robinson’s decorated career, Washington said, “What he carried with him, what he represented, was towering.”

“Beyond the field, Jackie Robinson challenged us to become better versions of ourselves: business leader, family man, activist, Hall of Famer,” Washington said.

Those words were later amplified by two tributes to Rachel Robinson: an on-field happy birthday cheer led by current Dodgers player Mookie Betts and a video piece narrated by actress Octavia Spencer. Spencer called the Robinsons a pair of pioneers on “the unstoppable way forward.”

When they traveled together to Florida for spring training at a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team, Rachel and Jackie Robinson were newlyweds. Rachel previously described to NPR how she was “horrified” by the everyday racism they encountered, from being bumped off flights and turned away from restaurants to being forced to sit in the back of the bus in Jacksonville.

The Robinsons were active in civil rights and leveraged their position to help others, from business, housing, and banking ventures, to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which Rachel founded to help minority students attend college and find their way to careers.

Washington concluded his speech with an eye to the bigger picture, saying, “[Jackie Robinson] said that life is not a spectator sport, and he lived that motto to the fullest. Whether it was charging down the baselines or standing tall for opportunity and justice, number 42 blazed a trail that would light the way for people of every walk of life and every color.

“And to this very day — every generation — that inspiration, that profound impact looms just as large today as it did 75 years ago. Washington was once slated to star in a film about Robinson. According to Variety, the scrapped project was to have been a Spike Lee-directed flick. The movie preceded plans for 2013′s “42” starring the late Chadwick Boseman. In a post on Instagram in 2020, Lee revealed Washington said he was “too old” to play Robinson.

Players can still feel Jackie Robinson’s impact in today’s game. Because of his bravery and accomplishments, black boys can play in the major leagues and stand in the sun.

Denzel Washington honors Jackie Robinson. Chills. #AllStarGame pic.twitter.com/Tm9BEj1FHJ

— MLB (@MLB) July 20, 2022