WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — Today, every team in Major League Baseball will honor the late Jackie Robinson by having every single player in the league wear Robinson’s universally retired jersey number 42. Not wanting to miss a chance to bring the attention to himself, President Donald Trump decided to honor Robinson in his own, unique way while playing the back nine of the Southern Oval Office, also known as the golf course at Mar-A-Lago.
“Today, we honor a great man,” Trump said to reporters on the first tee box, “me. Also Jackie Robinson, of course. I paid tribute to Jackie this morning by eating forty-two hot dogs before tee time. Don’t thank me now. Thank me in a couple years when I’m running for re-election and you remember how much I honored this Jackie.”
Trump said that in many ways he feels a “kindred bond in spirit” to Jackie Robinson. Mr. Trump said that while Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, he himself broke a very important color barrier in American politics.
“I broke the White House’s orange color barrier,” Trump said, “and I’d have broken the color barrier in general of that Kenyan Voodoo guy hadn’t gotten there first. So like them, isn’t it folks? You know, those types. Those types that look like him? In the skin-ular region?”
A reporter asked Trump to clarify what he meant by “types” and “look like him.”
“You know,” Trump explained, “urbans. Ben Carsons. Anyway, let’s not get bogged down in all this okay? We’re here to honor two great men. Me and then much, much lower down on the list, Jackie. I mean, it’s Jackie Robinson Day, but it’s really, always Donald Trump day because I’m president. And honestly, Jackie’s been dead so long, I don’t think he’d mind me making it Donald Trump and Jackie Robinson Day.”
The president offered up a few more ways that he and Robinson are similar.
“Jackie was heckled and verbally abused by angry, ignorant racists, and I was elected by angry, ignorant racists,” Trump explained.
There was one other way that Trump honored Jackie on the golf course this morning.
“I will be playing 42 more rounds of golf this year,” Trump said, “you know, in honor of Jackie, and not because I’m terrified of the job I didn’t really want and am so grossly, and obviously, and manifestly, and self-evidently, and bigly unqualified for.”
You can follow James on Twitter @JamesSchlarmann.
