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Baseball legend Reggie Jackson shares how team had his back when he faced racism

"If I couldn't eat in a place, nobody would eat…"

Jim Accordino/Wikimedia Commons

Reggie Jackson played pro ball for 21 seasons.

Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson played for 21 seasons in the major leagues, starting with the Kansas City Athletics in 1967 and retiring as a Los Angeles Angel in 1987.

But it was the year he spent playing minor league ball in Alabama that he opened up about in a Fox Sports pregame show at Rockwood Field in Birmingham. Jackson had played 114 games with the Birmingham Athletics before being called up to the majors, and when Alex Rodriguez asked him how it felt to be back in that place, he said bluntly that it was "not easy."

As a Black player in 1967, Jackson faced virulent racism when the team traveled throughout the South, from restaurants to hotels to fancy venues the team was invited to. He shared examples of being called the n-word and not being allowed into various establishments. He said he'd never want to go through that experience again and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

He also shared how his managers, coaches and teammates had his back during such incidents. They refused to eat where he couldn't eat or sleep where he couldn't sleep. He said they helped him refrain from responding to racist attacks when he was "ready to physically fight."

Watch him tell his story:

Here are his remarks in full:

"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 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. Had it not been for Rollie Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudi, I slept on their couch three, four nights a week for about a month and a half. Finally, they were threatened that they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"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."

People praised the commentators and show producers for letting Jackson say what he wanted to say without interrupting or cutting him off. Some shared that it's vital to hear this part of our history from first-hand sources, as there are Americans who forget or deny that such incidents were commonplace within current adult lifetimes. Even knowing that Black players had a lot to overcome as segregation waned, it hits differently when you hear specific details.

Jackson's story is a difficult but important reminder that Civil Right Act of 1965 changed the laws but didn't magically flip the racist beliefs that made it necessary in the first place. But it's also a good reminder that individual Americans rejecting those beliefs and standing up for racial justice is a part of our national history as well.

racial justice
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One of MLB's first openly gay players explains why its new hazing policy is a big deal.

It's one of baseball's most time-honored traditions: Veteran players making rookies dress up in embarrassing costumes.

Recently, the New York Mets rookies dressed like the women's team from A League of Their Own and fetched coffee for their teammates. A few years back, the Washington Nationals dressed as the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team and rode the train around D.C..

Starting to see a pattern?

This kind of hazing isn't unique to baseball. You see it in other team atmospheres too, from exclusive clubs to fraternities and sororities. It's meant to build camaraderie, to prove that the newbies are willing to put the team ahead of anything else.

But sometimes — OK, a lot of the time — this kind of hazing goes too far and crosses into offensive or dangerous territory.

That's why the MLB just announced a new zero-tolerance policy for all forms of hazing that mine humor at the expense of someone else's gender, religion, race, or sexual orientation.

Billy Bean — a former player of six years, one of the first pro players to come out as gay, and now the MLB's vice president of social responsibility and inclusion — explains what the big deal is:

"We didn't used to take pictures or talk about what we used to do. Now players are posting pictures in the clubhouse in real time ... We need to be cognizant of the 7- and 8-year-olds that have access to your Twitter feed 24/7," he says.

Billy Bean takes a swing. Photo by Billy Bean used with permission.

"If the hazing is disparaging toward women, or the LGBTQ community, or old stereotypes that people used to think were funny about ethnic backgrounds or religious views, that's not funny anymore."

Plenty of players and ex-players have come out against the new policy too, but as far as Bean is concerned, they can suck it up.

"We have an average salary of over $4 million a season," Bean says. "I don't think it's too much to ask of the players to think a little bit before they engage in this tradition."

The league isn't out to be the fun police. Bean says there are plenty of friendly initiations that don't send a harmful message.

He says the New York Yankees rookies recently dressed up as "the baby bombers," an ode to their reputation as a young team full of powerful sluggers.

"That wasn't mean-spirited," he says. "It was creative. It was funny."

The bottom line? No one should be forced to do anything they truly don't want to do.

Since the news, many players have come out in support of "the old way of doing things," which is disappointing to some. But league officials say a lot of other current players are glad about the changes and had complained about being forced to dress in offensive costumes.

This move by the MLB certainly doesn't mean pro sports culture is "fixed." There are currently no active MLB players who openly identify as gay, for example, and the odds of that being the case are astronomically low.

But this new policy is a small step — however small — in the right direction.

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The Cubs' first trip to the World Series in 71 years includes a bit of unexpected history.

Dexter Fowler to be the first black man to play a World Series game as a member of the Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs will face off against Cleveland on Tuesday, Oct.  25, 2016, and in doing so are set to make history in a way that sports fans and casual observers alike can appreciate.

It's been a long time since the Chicago Cubs made it to the World Series — 71 years, to be exact. For that reason alone, the team's 2016 season is one for the history books. The Cubs defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 to advance to their first World Series since the 1945 season.

But there's another reason to celebrate their victory, one that has to do with just how much has changed in the past 71 years.

The Cubs celebrate defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 in game six of the National League Championship Series on Oct. 22, 2016. Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images.

The last time the Cubs played in the World Series, baseball was still two years away from Jackie Robinson's history-making Major League Baseball debut.

A legend, a hero, and a true trailblazer, Robinson became the first black athlete to play Major League Baseball in 1947 as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. That year, Robinson was named Rookie of the Year; two seasons later, he was named National League MVP; in 1955, he won his one and only World Series championship.

Robinson is seen here in a 1951 photograph. Photo by Keystone/Getty Images.

On Oct. 25, Cubs center fielder and lead-off hitter Dexter Fowler will step into the batters' box for the first pitch of the 2016 World Series.

Fowler, who is black, will not only be the first member of the Cubs to step up to the plate in the team's first World Series appearance in 71 years, but he will be the first black man to do so in a Cubs uniform.

Fowler takes batting practice before a 2015 game. Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images.

Sportswriter Rany Jazayerli was one of the first people to have made the connection, posting the observation to his Twitter account:

The tweet caught Fowler's attention. Clearly, this bit of history, as delayed as it may be, means a lot to him.

Pretty cool, right? In the past, Fowler has talked about Jackie Robinson's achievements, highlighting how Robinson's work and sacrifice helped pave the way for his own success in MLB.

Fowler hits a home run during a 2015 game against the San Francisco Giants. GIF from MLB/YouTube.

"I don't think God could have picked a better person [than Jackie Robinson] to do it," Fowler said in an interview a few years back. "It definitely takes a strong individual to do that."

In sports and in life, we've made a lot of progress over the past 71 years. There's still a long way to go.

In 1953, Ernie Banks became the first black athlete to play for the Cubs. While he went on to have a Hall of Fame career, he never made it to the World Series, and it ate him up inside.

"Sometimes I’m at a Hall of Fame reunion and I’ll look around and see I’m the only one in the room who never played in a World Series," said Banks in an interview with Ron Rapoport. "I’ve had nightmares about it. Once I even talked to a psychiatrist. There wasn’t much he could say, just that I’d done the best I could and it wasn’t meant to be."

Banks died in January 2015. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

Sadly, Banks passed away in January 2015 without seeing his beloved Cubs do what he tried to accomplish during his own career. Still, it's the progress and work of players like him and like Robinson that got us to where we are today in terms of racial equality in sports, and that might be more important than any championship ring.

Fowler makes a diving catch during the ninth inning of a 2016 playoff game. GIF from MLB/YouTube.

There's still work to be done, however. So long as inequality in its many forms exists — whether on the basis of race, gender, religion, class, country of origin, or anything else — there's work to be done, and whether you're a Jackie Robinson, an Ernie Banks, or a Dexter Fowler, you can help bring about positive change in the world through bravery and empathy for others. It's about much, much more than sports; it's about life.

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