On June 20, two days after the death of baseball icon Willie Mays, also known as the “Say Hey Kid,” Major League Baseball hosted its first-ever game at the historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, in honor of Mays and other Negro Leagues players who left an indelible mark on the sport. The game was dubbed “A Tribute to the Negro Leagues.”
Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson joined the Fox Sports broadcast, where he was asked by former MLB star Alex Rodriguez about his emotional state as he returned to where he once played in the mid-1960s.
Jackson proceeded to share raw, painful memories of the racism he experienced during his time with the Birmingham A’s in 1967.
“Coming back here is not easy. The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled,” Jackson told Rodriguez. “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.
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