So Cal's All-Time Roster: The Jackie Robinson Mystery

A sidebar to Sunday's column on the All-Time Southern California sports roster is the mystery surrounding Jackie Robinson's career at UCLA:

Jackie Robinson's No. 42 might be the most well-known number in American sports. But since his Dodgers' career was confined all to Brooklyn, what digits are most attached to him while playing in Southern California?

At UCLA, where he attended from 1939 to the spring of 1941, he wore No. 18 in basketball, No. 28 in football and in baseball ... no one's quite sure.

He only played baseball one season - 1940 - sporting a .097batting average. There are photos of him in uniform, but nothing to show his number.

UCLA's sports information department can't find any evidence of it. The Dodgers, and Baseball Hall of Fame's research department in Cooperstown, N.Y., didn't produce anything. Neither did a dig through the Amateur Athletic Foundation nor the Pasadena City library archives.

Employees at the Jackie Robinson Foundation finally were asked to quiz Rachel Robinson on it. She replied: I don't know.

For now, it remains an iconic, and ironic, mystery.