Popehat: Thanks for Reggie Jackson for saying this, and contempt and defiance, in advance, to the worthless shitbirds who will say he shouldn’t have and that he oughta leave if he doesn’t like it. Regrettably those worthless shitbirds are now fairly mainstream. sports.yahoo.com/mlb-at-rickw...

Thanks for Reggie Jackson for saying this, and contempt and defiance, in advance, to the worthless shitbirds who will say he shouldn’t have and that he oughta leave if he doesn’t like it. Regrettably those worthless shitbirds are now fairly mainstream. sports.yahoo.com/mlb-at-rickw...

MLB at Rickwood Field: Reggie Jackson recalls racist treatment in Alabama in stunning interviewsports.yahoo.com For three minutes, Mr. October laid out in stunning detail what it was like to be a Black player in Alabama in 1967.

My wife had the opportunity to meet Mr. October in California in the 1980s (before I met her). He was (in her words) handsome, brilliant, built like a brick house and a great storyteller. I'm so glad that he shared the truth about how Jim Crow was daily violence to those under its thumb.

I started watching baseball because of what Reggie Jackson did on the field. Listening to Reggie Jackson off the field is a much more important lesson in humanity and American history. Black history is American history.

And that was almost 2 decades after Jackie Robinson. smh.

Really.

Also, imagine being the kind of person who thinks he can tell REGGIE JACKSON of all people what he should and shouldn't say. Like Reggie Jackson is going to care about their opinions.

But he was 21 years old at the time. He developed a very hard shell and I suspect this had a lot to do with it.

We're talking about people now saying Reggie shouldn't have talked about this.

Oh, I'm sure more than half of Alabama and every other MAGA state are pissed that he spoke out. I am team Reggie, grew up watching him, class act.

I’m not even a baseball fan, but a person doesn’t have to be a follower to recognize a leader.

I wish I had heard these stories from Jackson when I was growing up and watching him play. It would have probably changed a lot of things. I get why he didn't, but glad he is now. (Haven't read story yet)

I was a white kid in a white neighborhood growing up, but I knew that there were places black folks did not go and that we never went where black folks lived (Chicago area) My parents were racist, so they never explained to me what living black was like back then.

Growing up in Tennessee, I went to a rural K-12 public school, and there were about 5 black families that had kids enrolled there. I treated them like anyone else and I really didn't understand a lot about racism until I was grown. I was ignorant of many things. Still am, but trying to fix that.

Great to hear Rollie Fingers was a stand up guy, not just the best baseball card to stumble across in the mid-80s.

first memory of pro baseball was the 1982 American League Championship where Fingers pitched against Jackson to get the Brewers their one and only shot at the World Series. The whole city of Milwaukee was just going nuts. Jackson was the #1 opponent, but I never knew he and Rollie were friends

They were both on the Swingin' A's championship teams.

Reggie Jackson was the reason Rollie Fingers grew that mustache in the first place - Jackson showed up to spring training with a ‘stache, Charlie Finley said it reminded him of old-time baseball and offered an extra $300 to any player willing to grow one (about half the team did)

I did not remember that. Charlie Finley was quite the interesting character. $300. I rode the A's donkey in a parade as a kid.

Charlie O! Was a mule though, not a donkey, as I recall.

I loved Reggie so much as a kid (I rebelled against my Minneapolis family and rooted for the A's). Hearing that Rollie Fingers was one of his allies is so cool.

That was an amazing moment on television. Raw, unscripted, Truth and the props to the producers that let it play out. He not only called out the ones who called him an N-word and kicked him out. But the allies who helped him and treated him like the human he is

"Leave if you don't like it" is super funny because I know how racists act when they run out of minorities to oppress -- they turn on each other, or even invent whole new minorities, or engage in never-good-enough purity testing on each other. Their whites-only paradise is pure fantasy.

I forget sometimes that literally just over 50 years ago, not that long befitting I was born, it was this bad. This is just gut-wrenching stuff. I’m glad he got through it and managed to be one of the best players the league ever saw but no one should ever have to experience this.

*before I was born

Friend of mine saw him play as a Yankee and heard fans yell the N-word when he struck out. It wasn't just the South.

This is such a useful lesson in why solidarity matters. Thank you for pointing it out.

MAGA is salivating to go back to this time and sooner, like the 50's.

Was it me, or was the big fella to the right of Mr. Jackson almost in tears? He was looking pretty choked up by about halfway through the speech.

As I learned the other day, the announcer at Rickwood Field in Birmingham used to be BULL CONNOR

I'd love to get ahold of audio of him announcing, but he was doing this pre-WW2 and it's unlikely anything survives, unless there's some wire recording lying around. But hey, I've got a tape of CURRENT Gov. Ivey gleefully talking about performing in blackface in college. Thanks, WEGL? Lucky me :-/

Reggie Jackson is forever the straw that stirs the drink. That was powerful.

That interview was spitting fire and truth.

I thought I was watching a movie. I never heard a sports figure talk about the segregationist crap they faced with such feeling and power during a game before.

It sure is funny how the same people who say racist stuff all the time are literally the same people who insist we are in a post-racial society

Johnny McNamara was one of my favorite Red Sox Managers growing up. I think even more highly of him now.

They shouldn’t have fucking bleeped it. When the man himself says “they pointed at me and said that ***** doesn’t eat here” you let people hear the ugly racist fucking truth.

My understanding is that the original broadcast wasn’t edited, but that a lot of the inline clips are. Your point is 100% correct, though.

This really needed to be said. I'm glad he did.

the other thing is that many of the people who showered that hate on Reggie (and many, many others) are still alive too. They aren't gone. And many of them still working towards that past.

My family moved from ATL to BHM in the late 60s and even as a kid I could tell that the intensity of bigotry was off scale, right down to our teacher in Bluff Park saying on Apr05 that MLK was an agitator who had it coming. I've been trying to work out the reasons for that difference ever since.

The reasons are the Temple Bombing of 1958 and Mayor Ivan Allen

International Civil Rights: Walk of Fame - Ivan Allenwww.nps.gov

ah, "the good times".

Have people been saying he shouldn't have said it and that he oughta leave if he doesn't like it? I haven't seen any takes like that, but I very well may have missed them.

you're on the wrong site for that, thankfully. but i'm not going to enable my account on the other site where doubtless you can find many such examples.

There will be at least one comment accusing him of "making everything about race"

I found the whole event amazing and moving and I can’t imagine feeling that without appreciating the awful truth that Jackson expressed.

Met him when I was 10 at a local LIttle League field opening. Nicest guy. Signed autographs for at least 30 minutes

I missed the prime of Reggie's career, but I mostly thought of him as an ego-driven jock. Today I'm a much bigger fan of Reggie than I was yesterday. We never truly understand what someone else has been through.

A lot of that rep for a big ego was created by sportswriters, though. When he was with the A’s in the early ‘70s he was a great guy who would hang out and sign stuff after games. And he signed a one-year contract with the A’s in ‘86 so he could retire with the team he started out with.

That was awful. I can't imagine anyone surviving that with their heart intact.

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