BOSTON -- On the eve of what would have been Jackie Robinson's 90th birthday, the Red Sox took some time on Friday to host their seventh annual celebration of the life of the late, great hero, who broke baseball's color barrier back in 1947.

The event took place at Fenway Park, where 150 Boston-area youngsters from various city school programs took part in what proved to be a poignant and educational couple of hours.

"This is our seventh year of celebrating Jackie Robinson's birthday," said Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino. "It's become a real tradition for us, and it's an effective way of sort of maintaining his legacy to young people who, believe it or not, don't know very much about him. We want children to learn about Jackie Robinson's life so that they can teach their children and their grandchildren."

One of the highlights of the event was the performance of the actor Gregory Gibson Kenney, who came to the stage dressed as Robinson, wearing an old-time Brooklyn Dodgers uniform with No. 42 on the back and a Hall of Fame patch on the sleeve.

Kenney played the part of Robinson well, describing in conversational form with the audience many of the things that the Hall of Fame trend-setter went through in his life and in his career.

The gripping parts of the conversation centered not around Robinson's magnificent steals of home but all that he went through along the way. Kenney educated viewers on how Robinson was spat on -- both literally and figuratively -- and how pitchers would purposely take aim at his head because they didn't like the color of his skin.

"These stories are not to make people feel bad -- they are learning experiences for people to go forward," said Tommy Harper, who stole 54 bases in 1973, still a Red Sox record.

Reliever Manny Delcarmen was also on hand.

After Kenney was done performing, Delcarmen and Harper went onstage and spoke to the kids about Robinson's influence.

"The way I see it, he opened up a lot of doors for all of us Spanish and Latino guys," said Delcarmen. "Just all the obstacles he went through to open these doors to all these players. You just think about Ken Griffey Jr. and those guys, he was my idol growing up. Without Jackie, he wouldn't be my idol. It was a good program today. A lot of kids had a great time. All the Jackie stories, you could sit here and talk about him all day. It was a good turnout."

Robinson's new Hall of Fame plaque, unveiled in Cooperstown on June 25, 2008, was also on display for all to see. It was the first time the plaque had traveled outside the Hall of Fame. In fact, Robinson's original plaque left the Hall only once, to the MLB's Civil Rights Game on March 31, 2007.

"We felt this was a very special occasion," said Ted Spencer, vice president and chief curator of the Hall of Fame. "This plaque was not the plaque that was unveiled in 1962. That plaque is in our archives, because the Jackie Robinson plaque was changed a year ago. When Jackie was inducted, he asked that the plaque just reflect his on-field performance and statistics and achievements.

"However, as time went on -- especially since 1997, the 50th anniversary of Jackie's coming into the Majors -- [we saw] much more awareness [of Robinson]. We started to get a lot of complaints that there was nothing on the plaque that reflected the fact he broke the color barrier in baseball. So we went back to the family and talked to them and decided it would be the right thing to do. It's something we don't do very often -- re-script a plaque."