April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day, marking the date he broke baseball's color barrier. But the number of African Americans playing the game keeps shrinking — a result of some unpleasant truths.

A century before the torpedo, there was the bottle bat. We've got that and more of this week's timely and timeless elements ...

We asked players from around baseball for their feedback on our MLB Rank list -- and once niceties were set aside, we found out how they really felt.