The Life in My Years

Continued from An American Legacy Story Part I: Willie

Rickwood (baseball) Field, Birmingham, Alabama. June 20, 2024.
Baseball has been played at Rickwood since 1910, making it America’s oldest active baseball park. A baseball game will be played at Rickwood today. For over a century, thousands of baseball games have been played at Rickwood; Major League Baseball’s (MLB) spring training games and exhibitions, semi-pro, and Negro League games. For a time, the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide used the field. Rickwood has even starred as a movie set

Today, Rickwood will star again, this time as the host of a regular season Major League game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. This game will be more than just any other in the long 162 game grind that starts in the promising spring, grunts through the hot summer, sweats out the dog days of August, ending in the crisp birth of autumn.

Today’s game is a celebration of the Negro Leagues, a celebration that’s long, long overdue. It’s also an unexpected celebration of one of the Negro Leagues’ and MLB’s favorite sons, Willie Mays, who, at 16, began his stellar professional career at Rickwood as the starting center fielder for the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays passed away two days ago in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the age of 93. It’s almost as if the baseball gods had preordained the convergence of events.

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If Willie Mays’ performance on the baseball field, his boundless joy on the diamond and his charismatic personality are bright light positives of America’s legacy, then Rickwood Field and one of the reasons for its existence are blots on that legacy.

If Rickwood Field is a monument to baseball history, it is, at the very same time, a symbol of American racism.

The Birmingham Black Barons of the Southern Negro League existed because Black players were barred from playing in Major League Baseball. That changed in 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. But change came hard. Robinson and the Black players who immediately followed were victims of racism both on and off the field.

Rickwood was not only the home of the Black Barons, it was also the house of segregation.

In the 1920’s the Ku Klux Klan held rallies at Rickwood. In the 1930’s, Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor gained popularity as the play-by-play announcer for the Birmingham (white) Barons. Connor, a rabid segregationist, would later serve for two decades as Birmingham’s Commissioner of Public Safety. It was during his tenure that Birmingham was known as America’s most segregated city. Connor directed the horrifying scenes, watched on the nightly news, of law enforcement using fire hoses and attack dogs to put down civil rights demonstrations. During a failed primary campaign to win the governorship of Alabama, Connor promised to buy “one hundred new police dogs for use in the event of more (civil rights) Freedom Rides.” It was at Rickwood that Blacks who attended (white) Barons games and whites who attended Black Barons games were relegated to a far corner of the right field bleachers where they were separated from the other patrons by a chicken wire fence.

Even though Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in 1947 and even though Black players had since become MLB stars, the accomplishments of Black players of the past were, for nearly three-quarters of a century, relegated by MLB to the back burners of professional baseball. In 1969, MLB had its opportunity to right the wrong. In that year, an MLB committee on baseball records (and MLB is a stat driven organization if there ever was one) recognized the stats of six major leagues beyond the so-called “bigs,” the American and National Leagues, but left out the Negro Leagues. Why? Because the committee could.

Finally in 2020, too little, too late, Major League Baseball became truly integrated when it recognized the stats of Negro League players (I use the word truly with some caution because in America, when it comes to basic rights and recognitions the U.S. is prone to backsliding). It “only” took MLB one stinking century, since the establishment of the Negro Leagues, to recognize the accomplishments of, according to almost any baseball expert worth his stat chart, some of the most gifted players in any league at any time in baseball’s long history.

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During the months-long runup to the Rickwood game, much has been made of the game’s significance. With the passing of Willie Mays the game’s symbolism has multiplied – exponentially. Over the months and weeks the ticket prices have also multiplied – exponentially.

On June 20th, 2024, Birmingham, Alabama is the place to be.

It’s pregame, and a number of Black players, past and present have been appearing in the various media, speaking on the importance of the game, and of the Negro Leagues impact on baseball and on America’s racial history.

Fox Sports is broadcasting both the game and the pregame show. Three former Black players, Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez, Derek (The Captain) Jeter, and David (“Big Papi”) Ortiz are co-hosting the pregame show. All three have been recognized as some of baseball greats. Two, Jeter and Ortiz, have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Today, Birmingham, Alabama, is the place to be.

But don’t try to tell that to Reggie Jackson. Reggie Jackson is also a member of the Hall of Fame. He got his nickname, “Mr. October”, for his legendary performances in the World Series (a five time World Series champion and 2 time World Series Most Valuable Player).

Jackson is also known for being braggadocious, flashy, and volatile. Not a wilting flower, Jackson will never hesitate to speak his mind. In baseball circles, Jackson is known to have what is often termed in the sport as, “the red ass.” In other words, he can be a major league jerk.

Jackson sits down for an interview with A-Rod, Jeter, and Ortiz. Up till now, it’s been a warm, kumbaya kind of a day.

Reggie Jackson is about to change all that.

Jackson started his professional career in Birmingham, playing 114 games of minor league ball with the Birmingham A’s before being called up to the “big club,” Kansas City A’s.

Sports interviews are usually fluffy, feel good affairs and in the moment, in that celebratory atmosphere, there’s no reason to believe that the dreamy sentimentalism won’t continue as A-Rod asks Reggie to describe how emotional it is for him to return to Rickwood. A-Rod is jovial and expecting a few tender moments of nostalgia from “Mr. October”. Instead, Rodriguez has just stepped into a buzzsaw.

There’s a pause, a short pregnant beat as Jackson takes a breath, fiddles with his cap and then launches into one of the most brutally honest sports interview responses ever aired. Jackson is almost expressionless, his tone even, thoughtful and measured.

“Coming back here is not easy. The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled. Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it. But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. People said to me today, I spoke and they said, ‘Do you think you’re a better person, do you think you won when you played here and conquered?’ I said ‘You know, I would never want to do it again.’

“I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say, ‘The n** can’t eat here.’ I would go to a hotel and they would say, ‘The n** can’t stay here.’ We went to [Oakland Athletics owner] Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner and they pointed me out with the n-word, ‘He can’t come in here.’ Finley marched the whole team out. Finally, they let me in there. He said ‘We’re going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers. We’ll go where we’re wanted.’”

“Fortunately, I had a manager in Johnny McNamara that, if I couldn’t eat in the place, nobody would eat. We’d get food to travel. If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, they’d drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay. Joe and Sharon Rudi, I slept on their couch three, four nights a week for a month and a half. Finally, they were threatened that they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out.

The year I came here, Bull Connor was the sheriff the year before, and they took minor league baseball out of here because in 1963, the Klan murdered four Black girls – children 11, 12, 14 years old – at a church here and never got indicted. The Klan, Life Magazine did a story on them like they were being honored.

“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. At the same time, had it not been for my white friends, had it not been for a white manager, and Rudi, Fingers and Duncan, and Lee Meyers, I would never have made it. I was too physically violent. I was ready to physically fight some – I would have got killed here because I would have beat someone’s ass and you would have saw me in an oak tree somewhere.”

Twice, Jackson uses the n-word in all its starkness. The three baseball greats, A-Rod, Jeter, and Ortiz sit in riveted, stone faced silence, occasionally nodding their heads, as Jackson weaves his horrifying tale. Reggie’s voice takes an angry turn as he tells the story of the murder of the three Black girls. A-Rod? Shakes his head. Ortiz? Stares in disbelief into God knows where. Jeter is just shell shocked.

At the end of it, A-Rod hugs Jackson, saying, “We love you, Reg.”

As Jackson is telling his story, and dropping two n-words in quick succession, a producer in a truck somewhere outside the stadium has a decision to make; cut to commercial and avoid any potential controversy, or let Reggie speak truth. The producer makes a decision and the nation watches Reggie speak truth.

Reaction is swift, viral and mostly positive.

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Jackson’s story is one that needed to be told. In the midst of a celebration of the Negro Leagues, Jackson told America, in raw, unapologetic terms, why there was such a thing as a separate league for Black players, many of whom had the talent to play in the majors but were barred because of the color of their skin.

Jackson, if only temporarily, removed the day’s veil of good feelings and exposed reality. In a few short minutes he gave America a history lesson. And make no mistake, this is the kind of history that legislators and governors and boards of education in red states have been working overtime to bury. Jackson’s story is not the one of American exceptionalism, the patriotic pap that America’s right wing is trying to sell. While the red state honchos clutch their pearls over what they think is gay indoctrination, they have no qualms about pushing the sedative of phony, feel good history.

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If we dig deeper, and we don’t have to go too deep, we unearth some other discomforting realities.

While 1967, when Jackson was at Birmingham, may seem ancient history to some, the reality is that it was not that long ago. I was fourteen years old and ignorant as to what Jackson was going through. I don’t think I would be wrong in thinking that my parents, as liberal and informed as they were, had no idea as to what Jackson was personally enduring during that summer.

1967 was only fifty-seven years ago, and over one hundred years after the Civil War had ended. Jackson’s stint in Birmingham came ninety-eight years after the fifteenth amendment, the last of the so-called Reconstruction Amendments was ratified.

A century had passed, the Jim Crow laws of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were supposed to have been in decline, but if the laws had been struck down, the segregationist war was still being waged.

Thirteen years before Jackson was denied a room and a meal, the Supreme Court ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision came down and a year later, Rosa Parks took a bus ride.

Ten years before Jackson’s minor league season, intercollegiate sports were being integrated while in San Francisco, Willie Mays, a local icon, was denied housing in the neighborhood of his choice because he was a Black man.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed and two years before Jackson stepped up to the plate at Rickwood, the Voting Rights Act was passed. Things should’ve been settled by then. Reggie Jackson should have been able to have his own place to sleep, rather than crashing at Joe Rudi’s place.

Times have changed since Reggie Jackson’s Birmingham nightmare. Now if you want to deny a person of color a place to lay his head or a table at a restaurant or a job, you still can. You just have to be creative about it.

Reality has marched on since the 1960’s if not progress.

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In 1981, a self-promoting New York businessman says, “I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”

New York, 2015. That same self-promoting New York businessman, now also a reality show star, goes on a racist rant while announcing his campaign for the presidency. Donald Trump, would run a campaign tinged with racist rhetoric and still get elected president.

In 2016, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers football team sits during the playing of the national anthem prior to the team’s third preseason game. Colin Kaepernick is protesting racial injustice in America. He’s not protesting against soldiers, veterans, or America in general. Throughout the 2016 season, Kaeapernick would continue his protest by kneeling during the playing of the anthem.

The following season, the protests spread as more players “take a knee” in protest of racial injustice. The President, Donald Trump, rages against the protests, and encourages the owners to fire the protesting players.

Following the 2017 season, Kaepernick becomes a free agent. He didn’t know it at the time but he had played his last game in the NFL. Kaepernick is talented enough to land a spot on any team looking for a quarterback, even just a backup, but owners don’t want to touch him even if those same owners are perfectly willing to sign domestic abusers.

On February 23rd, 2020, twenty-five year old Ahmaud Arbery goes out for a run, and is spotted by three white men who subsequently hunt him down in their trucks like prey. Arbery is finally cornered and shot. That the three killers are convicted is proof that the legal system is working. That they committed the act is proof that America has a big fucking problem.

Two years later, presidential candidate Donald Trump breaks bread with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

A year after that, Trump claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood or our country.”

In May of 2024, the school board in Virginia’s Shenandoah County votes to restore Confederate names to two schools within its jurisdiction.

As of this writing, Donald Trump, despite his bigoted past and his openly racist rhetoric, is positioned to win back the presidency.

In January of this year Nikki Haley is running for president. In an interview, Haley declares that America “has never been a racist country.”

Reggie Jackson would like to have a word.