The MLB Rookie of the Year award was renamed after Jackie Robinson in 1987.
The change honored Robinson 40 years after he broke Major League Baseball’s modern color line with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson had already been the award’s first official recipient, winning the inaugural national Rookie of the Year honor in 1947. In 1987, the American League and National League awards were formally renamed the Jackie Robinson Award.
The award’s history goes back further than the name most fans know today. It was originally called the J. Louis Comiskey Memorial Award, after the former Chicago White Sox owner. One national award was presented in 1947 and 1948; beginning in 1949, separate winners were selected for the National and American Leagues.
The name change is sometimes confused with other Robinson tributes. MLB retired his number 42 throughout the league in 1997, but that happened a decade later. Robinson also became the first Black player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, another milestone unrelated to the award’s 1987 renaming.