As far as the original question goes, it has already begun to affect baseball. depending on your take on it, in ways both good and bad.
Jackie Robinsons number has been retired league wide. And that I think is a wonderful gesture as far as it goes. Does it neglect the other pioneers? I think so. Does it neglect his teammates and the few other players in the league who supported him in what was surely a very difficult time? Yes. The question is how and how much to honor those pioneers and the people who supported them. That's not an easy thing. Maybe just having Jackies number retired leads people to look at the story a bit more? And maybe that's enough.
The Red Sox and the city of Boston have decided to change Yawkey way back to Jersey Street. At the request of team ownership. And the T is looking at changing the name of the Yawkey commuter rail station.
http://www.wbur.org/news/2018/04/26/...-jersey-street
I can sort of understand the feeling behind it, but I'm not sure erasing history is the way to handle that. But then, it's only been Yawkey way since 77, so it erased the history of Jersey street. Which was named after the Earl of Jersey.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/2018/04/24...-jersey-street
More named after the office to make the place seem more upper crusty then the actual person. Hmmm..... Named after a statesman from the place we fought the revolution against.... Sounds familiar in some way.
On the other hand, swamp we threw trash into number 7 street doesn't have much of a ring to it, and could antagonize environmentalists....