To this day, Jackie Robinson’s 42 is the only number that has been retired by all teams across Major League Baseball. Every year, on April 15—the anniversary of the day in 1947 that he first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers—it’s Jackie Robinson Day, when all players across the majors wear the number 42.

This year, 42, Oscar-winning writer-director Brian Helgeland’s Robinson biopic about those tumultuous years in the life of baseball, will be released the week of Jackie Robinson Day. It’s not surprising that 42 is an inspirational film about breaking down barriers.

But 42 is also something less expected—a great baseball movie.

“I’m thrilled that the film functions as a sports flick as well as a stunning civil-rights film, because I think juggling the two was near impossible,” John C. McGinley says. The veteran actor, known for roles in Platoon and TV’s Scrubs, was on the phone from Toronto last week to tell the Georgia Straight about his small but pivotal role in 42 as iconic Dodgers announcer Red Barber, who helped underline Robinson’s greatness during his long tenure as the team’s number-one sportscaster.

“Let’s not forget that Robinson was rookie of the year, an all-star player for six consecutive years, and a hall of famer,” he says. “Though, of course, he is most famous as a civil-rights pioneer, and rightly so.”

42 follows legendary Dodgers manager Branch Rickey (played with cigar-chomping glee by Harrison Ford) as he seeks to single-handedly desegregate baseball. He invites Robinson (played by relative newcomer Chadwick Boseman) to the majors. After a season playing for the Dodgers’ farm team, the Montreal Royals, Robinson steps onto Ebbets Field on that fateful day in April—and there’s Barber up in the booth, telling the crowd, and the world, that number 42 is up to bat and that he’s “definitely a brunette”.

“My number-one responsibility to Red Barber was the sound,” McGinley says. “Honestly, there’s no such thing as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan—they have fanatics. They hold Red Barber so close to their heart that to not strive to be authentic would be a travesty.”

Helgeland provided McGinley with recordings of all of Barber’s World Series broadcasts and encouraged the actor to find his own gems among what McGinley called the broadcaster’s “cavalcade of eccentricities”. At one point in the film, McGinley has the sportscaster describe a player as someone who can “hit a lamb chop past a hungry wolf”.

“I knew we’d hear him [Barber] much more than see him in this movie. His cadence was so specific to my ear. I went through the World Series broadcasts and cherry-picked every nugget I could find,” the actor says.

It’s tidbits like these that make 42 a textured historical sports movie as well as a great film about the challenges of desegregation. And did they get it right? According to McGinley: “The easiest answer to that is that Jackie’s widow gave the film a wildly enthusiastic stamp of validation. End of story.”