The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: Roy Wood Jr.

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Roy Wood Jr. stops by to discuss his podcast Road to Rickwood, Reggie Jackson's speech, baseball and its impact on desegregation, and the problem with celebrity sporting events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. Hence, The Bike Riders follows Benny, played by Austin Butler, the newest member of Midwestern motorcycle club The Vandals, led by the enigmatic Johnny, played by Tom Hardy. Critics are calling it electrifying, stunning, exhilarating, powerful, and the godfather of biker movies. Experience The Bike Riders on the big screen this summer, now playing only in theaters. Visit BikeRidersMovie.com to get tickets now. I am proud to say that no show in America is bringing you black Roy's the way today's show is. We got Roy Bellamy out at the elbow room near the Stanley cup as it goes into the ocean and Roy Wood Jr.

Is with us. He's the host of a new four part podcast with NPR. It's called road to Rickwood. It's about the oldest professional baseball stadium in America. It's seen everything from a Klan rally to the first integrated sports team in Alabama and Rickwood Field in Birmingham was home.

To more history, last week Major League Baseball was already planning a celebration there for both the Negro Leagues and Birmingham's own Willie Mays when the Say Hey Kid passed away on Wednesday. and then on thursday during the fox pregame show uh... alex rodriguez as reggie jackson a question and the answer was surprising to a whole lot of people but shouldn't have been but i wouldn't wish it on anybody people said to me today i spoke and they said you think you're a better person

you think you you you one when you played here in Concord. I said, you know, I would never want to do it again. I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say, you can't eat here. I would go to a hotel and they say, then you 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. Had it not been for Raleigh Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudy,

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 at the same time had it not been for my white friends, had it not been for a white manager, and Rudy, Fingers, and Duncan, and Lee Myers, I would have never made it.

I was too physically violent i was ready to physically fight some i'd have got killed here because i'd have beat someone's ass and they have you to saw me in an oak tree somewhere people should watch the full clip because fox sports just let reggie talk i saw a quote from our friend elime a style from the nation said this is why republicans work so hard to keep history out of schools. They don't want white children to know what their parents and grandparents did.

Roy, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your work this past week. What was the reaction like down there? You know, in the city of Birmingham, you know, it was love and appreciation and reverence for all of the Negro League. It's not just Willie Mays. You know, I think what Reggie Jackson said was relevant. It was poignant, but it was also important to understand. That's what we're trying to remember, but also in a way grow away from. And I think that the fact that you could have a game of that significance in a

place where things that Hamas took place on a regular basis, I think is a testament to a lot of the growth that is happening in the state of Alabama. I just love the fact that the brickwood game happened because normally when you're talking about my hometown of Birmingham, it's dogs and fire hoses. So to be able to talk and at least be able to give those brothers a moment in the sun to tell them thank you, you know, it's not going to fix everything that happened to them. But I think it's a very, very important part of growing past all of it.

You know, the one thing that was dope, I was in the stadium when they announced when Willie Mays had passed on Tuesday night. And you saw strangers crying and hugging, white, black, whatever. And I think that's exactly the spirit of what Willie Mays was and using the sport Of baseball to bring people together. I will tell people again new four-part podcast with NPR road to Rickwood What were the highlights of doing it for you Roy? You can you have any number of opportunities on things?

You can be doing why is this the important one for you? Well, because you get to sit down with living griots that on things you can be doing. Why is this the important one for you? Well, because you get to sit down with living griots, the whole podcast, we're talking to retired Negro leaguers, former architects of the stadium, people who lived and played during that time, white and black. And they're just telling stories of how this stadium became the one place where you could figure out whether like the fact fact that you already said it at the time, the first integrated sports game happened there. Part of the reason for that is that the black,

the Birmingham black barons outsold the white barons in tickets during the days of integrated baseball. White people would come to watch black people play. So it became a place where integration was, there was a level of racial tolerance between both parties. So Rickwood became the perfect test kitchen, if you will, for desegregation in the South. In the same way it was the first integrated sports game, that same game was also the first integrated crowd. So if it can happen there, then the idea of desegregation can kind of tentacle off

from Rickwood. And that's partly what happened. The one thing they messed up, and I found this out in the podcast, Charlie Finley, the owner of the Barons at the time, they did a giveaway at the first integrated game for the crowd and it was razor blades. Now, I don't know if weaponry should be the thing you give to black people and white people when they sit

side by side for the first time. But old Gillette made a push for the sponsorship. So it's a lot of interesting facts just about how baseball intersects with our society and just silly fun stuff like that. You know, we we talked to retired Negro League as many told me stories of how they would send light-skinned players into white restaurants so that they could get food and then just pray that the player doesn't take his hat off and that Afro come jumping out from underneath the hat.

But I think the thing that I left last week with was how much the retired Negro Leaguers, most of them that I talked to, I'd say 95%, they look back at their time playing in the Negro leagues with a level of reverence and happiness because they were around friends and it was hard, but it was the one part of their life that wasn't completely crazy

and they still have an appreciation for those days. You played in the celebrity softball game, anything of note to report from that? Never again. Never again. What? I, I will never, I've done it. I, I don't need to play in no celebrity, nothing, no more.

Never again. I will be the hype man on the side, like that dude in those Anwan mixtape, like I will attend a celebrity game and just be there in the dugout. But the idea of being on the dugout. But the idea of being on the field. Here's the problem with every celebrity athletic event. You have people who want to win and then you have people who just here to have fun. I'm just here to have fun. I'm not trying to win. I don't care about winning. And they get these athletes who are just like 10 years or less since their retirement.

So they're still strong. They're still able bodied. Steven Jackson, and this is the play that we'll talk to Steven Jackson, before we even get to me and him almost colliding in left field, Steven Jackson, Matt Barnes, who was the MVP of the softball game. Steven Jackson and Matt Barnes took this game so seriously.

And I have nothing but the highest of respect for them. I knew from the locker room, I wasn't gonna do nothing. Steven Jackson was stretching, his Jordans matched his outfit. They may need the Jordans they gave us. They gave us free sneakers that matched the uniform and Steven Jackson was like, nah, I got this. We start losing.

We start losing. We start losing. We're getting ass with the whole game, our team. And there is an intensity with professional athletes, even if they're not suiting up anymore, that I just, unless you've done it, I just don't think you can plug into it. I couldn't plug into it. There's a play where there's a fly ball to left field. It's my ball. It is clearly my ball. I'm coming in and I'm looking up

and I can hear Steven Jackson and I can hear him just. And I don't know if that's how he calls for fly balls, but in my brain, I can, my brain is telling me he's not going to stop. He's Steven Jackson. He's locked in. Maybe you should get out of the way. And I get out of the way at the last second.

Steven Jackson catches this fly ball, turns around and runs back towards the infield and mumbles and I quote, I got this, this what I do. And I'm like, who the are you talking to? It's just you and me out here. I don't have that gear. Whatever that gear is.

Neither do I. For you to talk to yourself? No. So never again, man. Respect to Steven Jackson, man, but I can't play softball like that. That man was talking trash like he was going back up to court in transition on a baseball field.

Just to be clear, so the audience understands if they just got audio here, because we played the video, that was a fly ball to left field. Roy Wood was the left fielder. That fly ball was caught by the shortstop, Steven Jackson. He came out like Jeter and just catches it and goes, I've got this. This what I do. Clearly, this is what you do, sir. You can have the ball. and goes, I got this. This is

what you do, sir. You can have the ball. I'm not trying to collide with nobody at no celebrity softball game to tribute the Negro leagues. I'm good. Roy, did you feel confident? Did you feel confident though

that you were going to catch that ball? Yeah, I thought so, you know, but if I hadn't caught the ball, now I'm face to face with Steven Jackson. So it's probably better to just get out of this man's way. It was, it's just these celebrity games, man.

It's just people trying to prove they still got it or it's a rapper trying to take over. Y'all got it, man. Y'all got it. And, and shout out to LeBron's company, Spring Hill, who helped organize it and CC, Sebastian'all got it, man. Y'all got it. And, and, and, shout out to LeBron's company Spring Hill, who helped organize it in CC, Sebastia with the players Alliance. They sent a questionnaire and they ask you, what position do you like to play?

What's, you know, what's your skill level of, what's your ability at this sports? Cause then they can decide how to roster you. The only question they should ask is whether or not you got this. Do you got this or not? Were you a serious will you take this game? Because I would have said three and then you don't put me over there

Yeah, maybe what Robin Thede or Cal Mitchell from Kenan and Cal Cal was playing at a three Yeah, a three or a two. Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes were both on 12 and it's just, Jamin Winston was locked in, Des Bryant was locked in, Terrell Owens was locked in. There's just a, there is a, there is a level that every athlete accesses, whether it is for pay or for exhibition that I do not possess. And I just don't know if I belong out there. Were you at the ceremony at Wrigley Field for Ryan Sandberg?

No, I missed Rhino by a day. I was there the day before where they paid tribute to the 84 team that won the NL East. So Sutcliffe was there, Sandberg was there, a whole gang of the guys from 84. And you know, that was a great time. I mean, dude, I had a hell of a week, man. I met Reggie Jackson, I had an opportunity to sit down with a 98-year-old Negro leaguer,

and I got Ryan Sandberg's autograph. That was, in terms of baseball weeks, probably better than me seeing the Cubs win it all in Cleveland. Wow, that is high praise. And we're going to celebrate both you and your athleticism here by taking the opportunity to show everybody a clip from a couple of summers ago when you threw out the first pitch here at Wrigley Field.

We're gonna all get to it. So you're gonna show the bad one. Enjoy this together. Yeah, that's not a great. You're gonna show the bad one. That's not a great throw there by you. Was there a good one? All the producers there, all the the producers that you couldn't find the one from last week though I say I'm 44 mile an hour over the over the plate last week

All them computers look at all them computers in there Look at all them computers. You bounced it, it seems like you bounced it one into the other. Honestly, a great fight. Look at all them people there, can't none of them find shit. See you later, Roy, good talking to you. Good talking to you.