Reggie Jackson, Rickwood and recruiting industry represent remarkable week for Alabama
Reggie Jackson, left, shakes hands with Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin at a luncheon at Regions Field. (Briana Hatten / Alabama News Center)
Reggie Jackson, the man whose home run prowess in Major League Baseball’s World Series earned him the moniker of Mr. October, told a luncheon audience Thursday that he had an even loftier desire.
“I wanted to be Willie Mays,” the Baseball Hall of Famer said at the event, presentend by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Prosper Birmingham and the city of Birmingham in the ballroom at Regions Field. “Willie Mays was made for baseball and baseball was made for Willie Mays.”
Jackson spoke two days after Mays died. The former New York Yankee said the native of metro Birmingham would at least have to be in the conversation of greatest baseball player of all time.
“As far as what he did for baseball, he probably played the game better than anybody ever because of his skills, whether that was power, speed (and) he could throw,” Jackson said, adding that Mays likely had more gifts for the game than anyone. “And then he had an instinct for the game.”
Jackson’s fireside chat with AL.com’s Roy S. Johnson yielded a look back at a difficult stage of the ballplayer’s life and baseball career when he played for the Birmingham A’s, the Double-A affiliate of the Kansas City A’s. The rising star didn’t want to come to Birmingham and was ultimately persuaded to come by his father.
Jackson said his experience as a Black man in Birmingham in 1967 was difficult, awkward and tough.
“I didn’t want to come to Birmingham,” he said. “It was enlightening and frightening at the same time. If it wasn’t for my white friends on the team, I would never have gotten through it. Without my white friends, I couldn’t have survived.
“You just don’t understand the journey because you wonder why someone could have that sort of bitterness toward you for no reason,” Jackson said. “It was extremely difficult to go through as a human being … treated as less than a person. I’m not glad I went through it. I’m glad I got through it.”
The EDPA luncheon was one of many events tied to the MLB at Rickwood events that culminated with the first-ever Major League Baseball game being played at Rickwood Field. The St. Louis Cardinals downed the San Francisco Giants 6-5 before an announced attendance of 8,332.
Actor/comedian Roy Wood Jr., who donated $5,000 to his alma mater Ramsay High School during the luncheon, said the short-term impact of the Negro League tribute game will be very good for Birmingham.
“But I think the way we measure success for this in the long term is whether or not Rickwood’s use is expanded into something beyond just baseball,” he said. “I think what we learned this week is that Rickwood is a place of community and gathering. I think there’s something that we could do every year around Juneteenth, whether Major League Baseball comes back or not. I haven’t felt this amount of love and fun, probably since the days of Birmingham Heritage Festival when it was downtown.”
Wood closed out the luncheon with a conversation with Gerald Watkins, chairman of the Friends of Rickwood. Watkins called Birmingham a baseball town.
“I think it is,” he said, “and this is just going to open up the eyes of everyone to that fact.”
Watkins said the Major League game in Birmingham provided exposure that no amount of advertising could buy.
“Our country is watching this game, worldwide,” he said. “Major League Baseball is at the top of the scale. We’re gonna get so many benefits from this after the fact. We’re going to have businesses looking to come here, which is part of why we’re here today.
“We’re gonna have tourists coming in all the time,” Watkins said. “We have a lot of tourists at Rickwood anyway, but it’s going to increase tenfold. The benefit of having this is just, it’s gonna take years to know how great it was and it’s gonna be something that we can all look back on and be proud of.”
EDPA President Greg Barker said he could scarcely put into words the impact of Major League Baseball coming to town.
“You just felt this special aura the entire week,” he said. “It was just incredible, absolutely incredible. While I can’t describe that, I can describe well the impact that the last few days had on economic development opportunities in Birmingham and in Alabama. We invited home office executives from major companies who accepted the opportunity to experience what (area residents) experience.”
Invitations were accepted by venture capitalists and companies with active projects that are considering Alabama for those projects.
“We had representatives from national, really international site-selection firms, economic development firms that accepted our invitation,” Barker said. “All of them left with the same exact feeling. There’s just no substitute for people not from Alabama experiencing that feeling.”
Other sponsors of the luncheon included Alabama Power, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Coca-Cola United, Innovate Alabama, PNC Bank, Shipt and Spire.
