The universally recognized and celebrated defining moment in Jackie Robinson’s life is the moment that he stepped to the batter’s plate at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on April 15, 1947. That Robinson attained immortality by breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. The annual rite of sports passage in the decades since is to mark the opening day of the baseball season with glowing tributes, remembrances, and much pageantry about the day, Robinson, and how it and he changed sports forever.

While the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 has become a certified success, attracting a diverse audience on its way to becoming No. 1 at the box office during its opening weekend, black Americans are still facing barriers to the baseball field. The opening of 42 occurred several days before the annual celebration of Jackie Robinson Day -- April 15, the day Robinson officially broke the color barrier -- when every baseball player, manager, coach and umpire in Major League Baseball sports his number, 42. But in recent decades, the number of African-American players has decreased with each passing year.

As often is the case in baseball, the only major sport without a salary cap, expectations of success often correlated with the size of the team's associated payroll.  Going into the 2012 season, the Red Sox payroll was a nearly incomprehensible $173 million.  Its three highest-paid players –Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett - made a combined $59 million, a huge number in itself, especially when compared with the lowly Oakland Athletics projected payroll which totaled $55 million, 29^th out of 30 teams in baseball and dead last in the American League.  Yet experts and expectations aside, the Red Sox, for all their money and talent, had imploded, finishing 69-93, easily the worst record they had booked since 1965.

Sports journalists are jockeying to declare baseball's impending death. None of these doomsayers knows exactly when America's pastime will cease to be (the Mayan calendar proves remiss in this regard), but rest assured, it will occur sometime in the future. Realistically, the death of Major League Baseball is a long way off. Despite the breadth of criticism baseball receives, the sport thrives off the support of diehard fans, corporate sponsorships, and regional popularity. 

Two cities. One a thriving metropolis of Midwestern opportunity, the other a concrete nexus of humanity searching for answers. Chicago and New York City. Both bustling with young people full of hopes and dreams. Both attracting hoards of newcomers eager to drink craft beers in the “up-and-coming” neighborhoods on the outskirts of downtown. But each city boasts its own charms, and at least one reason why its born-and-bred citizens won’t call anywhere else home.