Speaker 1: Yet you know, boys, it's back and reoded all in
Speaker 1: your mind. Yeah, not deep throating. This is for the streets,
Speaker 1: the reel, the railroading, the distant franchise, the truth escape building.
Speaker 1: And they ain't know when we speak the truth, so
Speaker 1: they ain't quoted because we wrote it. The North South
Speaker 1: East coat is the g b my keeping your head bobbing.
Speaker 1: It ain't no stopping and wants to be drops head by.
Speaker 1: And then the system is so corrupt they throw the
Speaker 1: rock out of their heads and then blame it on us.
Speaker 1: Don't get it twisted on code and me and dancing
Speaker 1: for no fundament biscuits. It's Willie den y'all. Scar faces
Speaker 1: in the building, Collective Louis are the ghetto boys, reloaded
Speaker 1: with another episode of information and instructions to help you
Speaker 1: navigate through this wild, crazy, beautiful world. In the studio,
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson a fan. We're talking living legend, We're talking iconic,
Speaker 1: We're talking you know, even greater than his baseball accolaides
Speaker 1: is his accolades as a human being. Reggie Johnson, Reggie, well,
Speaker 1: you know what I knew I was gonna do that,
Speaker 1: you know, Reggie Johnson, you for medi with Reggie Johnson,
Speaker 1: the boxer. Reggie Johnson is a personal friend of mine,
Speaker 1: so I always I'm always saying his name, and I knew.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to mess up at
Speaker 1: least once saying, uh, Mike mixing your name with Reggie's name.
Speaker 1: But Reggie Jackson is in the building. Fail. Um I
Speaker 1: want to. I want to. I just want to just
Speaker 1: like run down some of the accolades real quick. This
Speaker 1: is important. Uh, just established you know why we're having
Speaker 1: this conversation in the first place. Five time World Series champion,
Speaker 1: two time World Series MVP, two times Civil Slugger Award winner,
Speaker 1: four times a l home run King nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: he was the m v P of the of the
Speaker 1: league and in he was inducted into the Baseball Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. And you know, I was thinking about all
Speaker 1: of these accomplishments of yours. Do you you know ever
Speaker 1: have people come up to you and talk about your
Speaker 1: stats and your records and you like, man, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Like do you do you keep up
Speaker 1: with that stuff? Um? Well, if I would be saying
Speaker 1: that to someone, um, I I have that happened a lot. Um,
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't say to them, do you keep up
Speaker 1: with that stuff? I would be grateful and you know,
Speaker 1: thank them for being a fan, shake their hand and
Speaker 1: say thank you very much. If they didn't want anything else,
Speaker 1: I'd just say thank you, right and be honored. I
Speaker 1: was looking at your d o, b you was born
Speaker 1: in ninety six. You just had celebrated a birthday, and
Speaker 1: did you actually celebrateed? Did you do anything special? I
Speaker 1: was with my lady, my companion for thirty years, and um,
Speaker 1: we flew to Las Vegas to do to have a
Speaker 1: business lunch with a group of Honda guys. That there
Speaker 1: was a big event there. So we flew to Houston
Speaker 1: and on the way we stopped in uh Las Vegas
Speaker 1: for a few hours, and we came down here and
Speaker 1: had dinner with friends for my birthday. Uh, Kyle, did
Speaker 1: I have dinner with you on my birthday? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: came and I had dinner at the Potente in great restaurant, fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for my birthday. Right, right, we're having been lated. I
Speaker 1: was looking at uh seventy six years old. I'm fifty five,
Speaker 1: so another two many years I'll be your age, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: your current age and I'm thinking, like you know, oftentimes
Speaker 1: people would say, well, um, what would the old do
Speaker 1: you tell the younger you? I want to know what
Speaker 1: would the older you today till a fifty six year
Speaker 1: old Reggie Jackson, Um, fifty six year old. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not a young man. Uh. You know he was, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even say he was middle aged. But you know,
Speaker 1: at fifty six, you should be established. Uh, you should
Speaker 1: own a home, um, and you should be doing things
Speaker 1: that you love and enjoy. Not everyone has afforded that.
Speaker 1: That's a luxury. Um. Most people. My father at the
Speaker 1: age of fifty six had support six seven, eight nine kids,
Speaker 1: you know we had. He had six at home, and
Speaker 1: he had another three or four of you know outside
Speaker 1: that he had to support. So and he worked until
Speaker 1: he was in his seventies too to keep hustling in
Speaker 1: order to make life for themselves in himself. UM. And
Speaker 1: so you know, it's a different world for an African American. UM.
Speaker 1: So I would tell you things differently than I would
Speaker 1: tell a White American because the opportunities are different for
Speaker 1: each even in today's world. So that makes a difference, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and trying to pass on UM, what would
Speaker 1: be coming up in your life, and what you should
Speaker 1: pay attention to really is where is your family, where
Speaker 1: are your children? Who is your mate? Um? And what
Speaker 1: are you plan on doing with the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: At fifty six, you're fifty five, Um, you should be
Speaker 1: on a path of spending time and building your relationships
Speaker 1: and solidifying your relationships with your immediate family, children, wife, brothers, sisters.
Speaker 1: At fifty six, both my parents were alive. UM, so
Speaker 1: that's twenty years ago. My mother died in two thousands,
Speaker 1: so she, you know, just recently passed. I was late
Speaker 1: early fifties and my dad passed when I was forty seven. Um.
Speaker 1: But my dad had me when he was late because
Speaker 1: he passed at ninety. So I was fortunate to have he.
Speaker 1: We were great friends. Um. My dad got to see
Speaker 1: me play baseball. He got he was in a stadium tonight.
Speaker 1: I had three home runs. Um. Yes, uh. When when
Speaker 1: I got when I made it in the big leagues
Speaker 1: and made it in professional sports, my dad was young
Speaker 1: enough to receive the rewards of the money that I earned,
Speaker 1: and so I shared with my two parents. Helped all
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, but I shared with my parents. I
Speaker 1: didn't want them to have a rough life at all anymore.
Speaker 1: UM and so I was very close to family. UM.
Speaker 1: I became the nurturer of my mom and dad at
Speaker 1: at probably forty five or fifty. UM and I helped
Speaker 1: them when I was in my twenties financially, UM. And
Speaker 1: that was important for me. UM. And as as a
Speaker 1: colored Negro African American, I was all those things Nigra.
Speaker 1: You know, you know you're all those things. As you
Speaker 1: were coming along in my era, UM, you know, you
Speaker 1: made sure that you took care of your folks, um
Speaker 1: and so, and I enjoyed it, and I was proud
Speaker 1: of it. UM and I enjoyed my parents being comfortable. So. UM.
Speaker 1: At the age of in my fifties, I was working
Speaker 1: and gathering and still building the blocks of life. I
Speaker 1: was still building my village, if you will, UM, garnering
Speaker 1: and gathering assets to be able to take care of
Speaker 1: and provide for my family around me. Did you feel
Speaker 1: any panic? Panic? Panic? For it's like a sense of urgency.
Speaker 1: Let me get this right before, No, no, no. I
Speaker 1: went about it in a daily way. Uh. I had
Speaker 1: conversations with God all the time. UM. I remember being
Speaker 1: in Yankee Stadium, getting booed by the crowd. I had
Speaker 1: had a tough time there in the early years, being black,
Speaker 1: being a Yankee, wearing the pinstripes, and um, I wasn't
Speaker 1: subservient as a colored man. I was. I considered myself equal.
Speaker 1: I demanded dignity, and so I had what was interpreted
Speaker 1: as an arrogance, and I was I was arrogant because
Speaker 1: I was constantly demeaned as a colored and so negro
Speaker 1: um oh I had. I carried a chip on my
Speaker 1: shoulder for a long time and got to the point
Speaker 1: where when I would even see videos, I didn't really
Speaker 1: like myself. But I was always defending who I was
Speaker 1: as a man. You know, you're you're You're glad you're
Speaker 1: here with the Yankees. You're you're lucky you're here with
Speaker 1: the Yankees. And I used to go like, you're right,
Speaker 1: but you're way more glad I'm here than me. Glad
Speaker 1: I'm here. You're glad I'm here. And so I took
Speaker 1: it that way all the time of rather cow towing
Speaker 1: to someone, I wanted to be on equal ground and
Speaker 1: be recognized for the man. I was not not the
Speaker 1: the strongest coon in the room or the most powerful
Speaker 1: and the most talented. UM athletes and African American athletes
Speaker 1: were all ways considered a tremendous what an unbelievable talent,
Speaker 1: and the white athlete was a coach on the field,
Speaker 1: a manager on the floor. Um, you know, great understanding
Speaker 1: of the game. I could see great vision, Um where
Speaker 1: the athlete and I have had conversation. I threw a
Speaker 1: conversations with Michael just a couple of months ago in
Speaker 1: Florida where he said, gos Reggie. You know sometimes I
Speaker 1: still get upset with people thinking that I didn't work
Speaker 1: on my skills and I just walked into gym. Game
Speaker 1: started at eight o'clock. I rolled in at sixth already
Speaker 1: got dressed and went out and played. And he said,
Speaker 1: I know you understand that it took work to get
Speaker 1: to where I got to, where my good fortune brought
Speaker 1: me to where I am today. I've worked at it. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: who is at least in the paragraph of greatest athlete,
Speaker 1: the great basketball player, He's in the last sentence. It's
Speaker 1: either him or someone else that is the greatest. That
Speaker 1: is the real goat. You know when I hang around
Speaker 1: with him, then you've got a couple of goats in
Speaker 1: the room with me in him or or whomever. But
Speaker 1: when it gets down to the end that you know
Speaker 1: the last few, you know Jackie Robinson, Hank Karen Williams,
Speaker 1: Jimmie Brown, Michael, Jordan's chamberlain, Bill Russell. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of cats, Tiger, There's a lot of cats in there.
Speaker 1: But you know Jordan's and five, six, seven, eight, nine
Speaker 1: guys you mentioned there in the last paragraph, A couple
Speaker 1: of them in the last sentence. When you get that
Speaker 1: mini goats into one room, now it becomes a matter
Speaker 1: of subjectiveness, right is it's it's it's it's whomever you pick.
Speaker 1: And those guys I knew of them all. None of
Speaker 1: them have any preference of being the guy. They're comfortable
Speaker 1: and grateful, uh to be in the paragraph, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: in talking to my Michael the last time, describely the
Speaker 1: best conversation I've ever had with him. He should Reggie, guys,
Speaker 1: I never thought I would be where I am today
Speaker 1: for my my product and my my commercialism that has
Speaker 1: turned into into the business that I've got. I never
Speaker 1: dreamed would be like this, he said. I want to
Speaker 1: enjoy it and share it. With my family. What what
Speaker 1: what better words could you say? You know? Were there
Speaker 1: any like similar opportunities for endorsement deals? Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I made more money off the field and I made
Speaker 1: on I made more money in endorsements. I had to
Speaker 1: deal with Panasonic that paid me two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand a year for twenty years. Nice twenty years. I
Speaker 1: when I left them. I was with him for about
Speaker 1: ten or eleven years, and they paid me for the
Speaker 1: next eight for an appreciation of UM helping their brand.
Speaker 1: When I was in New York, we had a couple
Speaker 1: of signs there that the Lincoln Tunnel, the most popular
Speaker 1: sign in the world at the time, like having something
Speaker 1: on forty two Street that you had to go by
Speaker 1: that sign to get in and out of the city.
Speaker 1: And we had it for like ten years and I
Speaker 1: only played there for five, but Panasonic rewarded me got
Speaker 1: very comfortably for that. I wish I had known that
Speaker 1: it was called Reggie Vision. Reggie, It's called Reggie Vision.
Speaker 1: Did you do any UM Coca Cola sprite or no
Speaker 1: I Gatorade? Now there were no drinks like that, you know.
Speaker 1: I was on the cover of Wheaties or the box um.
Speaker 1: And then I did some Faberge stuff, you know, the
Speaker 1: group Faberge with with Joe Namath and uh, you know
Speaker 1: Puma shoes. Uh was was my brand for the longest time.
Speaker 1: And um, let it pays you. Oh yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 1: did a lot of work for ABC Television. I was,
Speaker 1: I did. I did several world series as an announcer
Speaker 1: when I was a player, right right, right right. I
Speaker 1: saw some of that, do you. You have often heard
Speaker 1: the old adage, you know, ah, money ain't good money.
Speaker 1: Have that been opportunities that was presented to you? And
Speaker 1: you would like, that's not consistent with my brand? And
Speaker 1: I don't want the money. I don't care how much
Speaker 1: money do you guys offer me. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: endorse that. Proc um that I would say that that
Speaker 1: has happened to me. But I never really was approached
Speaker 1: by a brand I didn't want to be associated with. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I was honored to do the the Panasonic
Speaker 1: UM television thing. And you know, as as a young kid,
Speaker 1: I watched an Admiral TV. I watched an r c A,
Speaker 1: I watched the Philco. I watched them old raggedy ones
Speaker 1: that you know, you couldn't afford that you could afford. Um.
Speaker 1: And so when Panasonic came along, it was an honor.
Speaker 1: It was turned down by Bill Cosby. And that was
Speaker 1: a woman. Um. She did a lot of horror movies.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. She was the daughter of Curtis Jamie
Speaker 1: Jamie Lay. She had a chance to do it, and
Speaker 1: they Panasonic was offering them, you know, four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: a year, and it was going to turn into a
Speaker 1: million a year for them, and Bill Cosby didn't want it,
Speaker 1: you know, unless it was seven figures. And I said
Speaker 1: to my my agent said, they're offering two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: thousand a year Reggie for three years with an evergreen,
Speaker 1: which means after the third year, after the first year,
Speaker 1: it extended a third year, and then after that year
Speaker 1: you got another third year. So it was green for
Speaker 1: three years. So when you got terminated, you had three
Speaker 1: years left. I said, do me a favor. Don't send
Speaker 1: it to me, sign my name and drive it over
Speaker 1: to Jersey. I said, go and get that money and
Speaker 1: get that deal and get it done. You don't need
Speaker 1: to send it to me. Let's go back to win Cope,
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Let's go back to to to
Speaker 1: Abington town Ship. Let's go back to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: where it all started for you. How was it like
Speaker 1: growing up out there? Um? You know, we had uh,
Speaker 1: six children at home with the parents, and my parents
Speaker 1: divorced when they when I was six. My dad took three,
Speaker 1: my mom took three, and um, I don't know they
Speaker 1: ever got a divorce and never remarried neither. But you know,
Speaker 1: my dad was a hard worker. My mother was a
Speaker 1: government employee. She was a hard worker. She moved to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: We lived in in um Wincote, which was just on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of Philadelphia suburb, and my dad worked during
Speaker 1: the day and he came home at night and cooked
Speaker 1: for the three children. My once oldest sister left and
Speaker 1: then my brother went to the service, and I was
Speaker 1: really alone for a while. One of my other brothers
Speaker 1: came and lived with us, got me through high school. Um,
Speaker 1: but it was based basically, you know, we had heat
Speaker 1: in the house. Um, we didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: extra food, and my dad bought food home from work
Speaker 1: every day because he owned his own business as a
Speaker 1: tailor and dry cleaner. Um, you know, but we we
Speaker 1: ate every day. Uh, a lot of times we had
Speaker 1: to We had to wait till my dad got home
Speaker 1: until we could put heat in the house because we
Speaker 1: had to go buy five gallons of kerosene to get
Speaker 1: the heat turned on it because it would run all night.
Speaker 1: But you know, I had a tough, tough home life.
Speaker 1: Went to school every day, never really took any days
Speaker 1: off because you could get meals you could eat at school. Um,
Speaker 1: and you and I was always on a sports team,
Speaker 1: so you showered at school a lot every day. You
Speaker 1: could shower there because at home, without heating the house
Speaker 1: in the morning, it was too cold. There was no
Speaker 1: hot water, you know, so we had to heat water
Speaker 1: to wash wash up in the morning. Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: relate to going to school to eat that meal, man,
Speaker 1: because if if I didn't go to school, I probably
Speaker 1: would not eat some day. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely can't
Speaker 1: relate to that. You mentioned your brother help you out,
Speaker 1: help you get through school household. Um, you know, he
Speaker 1: helped me dress, uh, and and and we're the right
Speaker 1: clothes things like that, and uh. But we you know,
Speaker 1: went to went to the same school for a while then,
Speaker 1: but he left and then went to live with my mom. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, we had a brothers and the sisters
Speaker 1: and the family kids. We did stick together and uh
Speaker 1: check in on each other. And you were four sports athlete.
Speaker 1: You played baseball, basketball, football, and what was the other
Speaker 1: ransom track and you ran track and track and field.
Speaker 1: How did you gravitate towards baseball? Like? And how did
Speaker 1: you get started with baseball? And how did you figure
Speaker 1: out like out of all of these sports, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take my chances from baseball. Well, really, we had the
Speaker 1: neighborhood baseball field in our backyard. Um it wasn't that big,
Speaker 1: but you know, you could, you know, have four or
Speaker 1: five guys on the team and play a game of
Speaker 1: baseball in the backyard. And my father worked inside in
Speaker 1: his business. He'd come out and check on it from
Speaker 1: time to time. But the neighborhood games were a lot
Speaker 1: of times in our backyard. That's hell of convenient, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, so you know, and I had
Speaker 1: to hit right handed a lot of times because if
Speaker 1: I hit left handed and hit the ball or maybe
Speaker 1: two feet, then it would go in the neighbor's yard
Speaker 1: and in the garden and they'd either keep the ball
Speaker 1: or yell at you because going in and chasing the ball,
Speaker 1: stamping on their plants or you know, garden or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you had to. If you didn't, you had You
Speaker 1: could play sports in high school junior high as well.
Speaker 1: But if you weren't on the first team, UH, Dad
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in building your social skills. You had to
Speaker 1: come home and work if you weren't on the first drink.
Speaker 1: So if you were sitting on the bench, you quit
Speaker 1: the team and brought you at you brought you a
Speaker 1: buttle work and helped you know so. But I made
Speaker 1: all the first string baseball, basketball, football, ran track UM
Speaker 1: during the baseball season. UM, and I went to college
Speaker 1: at Arizona State University. I was a much better football player. UM.
Speaker 1: I had size and speed. I was a hundred ninety
Speaker 1: pounder pounder in high school as a half back UH
Speaker 1: and safety, and then at Arizona State, I got to
Speaker 1: about one seven at two oh three, ran a four
Speaker 1: or five forty, had sized and I was really looking
Speaker 1: to play pro football. UM. I had played baseball, and
Speaker 1: I love baseball. I was probably the number one player
Speaker 1: in the area in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and all around. UM,
Speaker 1: but I had a you know, I was with a
Speaker 1: single parent and a lot of racism in my neighborhood
Speaker 1: as a black kid. And I was angry and tough,
Speaker 1: um from the racial slurs and racial stuff that you
Speaker 1: dealt with all the time. So I had an attitude
Speaker 1: and I was physical. Um. You know, if somebody would
Speaker 1: call you a nigger, than you're going to what you?
Speaker 1: I gotta beat you. You know, I would meet a
Speaker 1: kid up and then take him to the principal's office.
Speaker 1: You would take him to the prison to carry him
Speaker 1: to the office and say I just beat him, beat
Speaker 1: him up because he called me and nigger. Yeah yeah, boys.
Speaker 1: Reloaded podcast will be right back after the set. You
Speaker 1: played for Kansas City Athletics, Oakland Athletics, You played for
Speaker 1: the California Angels, You played for Baltimore Orioles, you played
Speaker 1: for New York Yankees. That's a lot of moving around,
Speaker 1: you know. I often want to like when baseball players,
Speaker 1: football players, basketball players, and they get relocated a lot,
Speaker 1: when they get traded and stuff that, how what kind
Speaker 1: of impact that has on your family? Um? Well, I
Speaker 1: was married for a couple of years with the Oakland
Speaker 1: A's and so my tenure with the A's was eight seasons,
Speaker 1: I was married into a single, married, and single again
Speaker 1: in those eight years. I was only married for about
Speaker 1: four years. I really wasn't ready to be married, and
Speaker 1: I my home didn't have a marriage in it, and
Speaker 1: so I really didn't quite get it. Um, wasn't the
Speaker 1: best husband. Didn't really know how to have a friend
Speaker 1: or friendship in in in your home between a woman
Speaker 1: and you. So my my marriage failed. Um, and I
Speaker 1: stayed single for the longest time, never got married again. Um,
Speaker 1: but certainly have a you know, a lady in my
Speaker 1: life now that's special. Yeah. You was getting a lot
Speaker 1: of action though, man, I mean that's kind of hard
Speaker 1: though to you know, like, especially if you're not ready.
Speaker 1: If you say I'm not ready and you got women
Speaker 1: coming at you from all angles, don't really too much
Speaker 1: matter what you have at home. If if there was
Speaker 1: women are coming at you like that, that's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to resist. Well, I didn't really look at it
Speaker 1: that way. That happened, but I was not. I didn't
Speaker 1: have the institution of marriage under the roof I lived in.
Speaker 1: My parents argued all the time. They finally got divorced.
Speaker 1: I was six years old, and I remember the day
Speaker 1: m HM when I was six, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have a pattern, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: the environment. You didn't know it, you know. And I've
Speaker 1: dated a couple of girls that had wonderful parents parenting
Speaker 1: and uh parents that um. I dated a girl for
Speaker 1: a few years and her parents were together for twenty
Speaker 1: some years and they were still girlfriend and boyfriend in
Speaker 1: their sixties. And it was so it was wonderful to
Speaker 1: see it. Wonderful, you know, to be in a relationship
Speaker 1: when you could see that the parents had created an
Speaker 1: environment that the girl was going to make no matter
Speaker 1: who she married, she was going to make a good
Speaker 1: wife because she lived in that environment. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't recall any stories of any wild stories of women
Speaker 1: coming for you, you know, like we live in the middle.
Speaker 1: We live in this meto era where guys get caught
Speaker 1: up all the time, athletes and rappers, they're getting caught
Speaker 1: up all the time with these these women coming after
Speaker 1: them for money and and babies. And they got babies
Speaker 1: and and they want the money. They're trying to get
Speaker 1: to the money. Have you ever had a situation like
Speaker 1: that before? Yes, I have. Um, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a child at a wedlock, and it's probably the greatest
Speaker 1: thing that's ever happened to me and the girl that
Speaker 1: I had a child. The child with hired Gloria already
Speaker 1: who was known to this day, and that was my
Speaker 1: daughter thirty one years old. Glory already was around back
Speaker 1: when she was four or five years old. Um, And
Speaker 1: so you know, I went through it. I got through it. Um.
Speaker 1: I got a wonderful daughter out of it. And I'm
Speaker 1: blessed and grateful um that I have a spectacular child
Speaker 1: that's given me a couple of grandchid grandchildren. She's given
Speaker 1: me one two a little over two years old, and
Speaker 1: she's uh seven months pregnant now and doing August, and
Speaker 1: I'll have another, my grandson. And so I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: um the gift. I went through a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: with it, you know, economically, but um, you know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with it just money at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. Um, those kids, you know, do y'all go
Speaker 1: out and do fun things, and you know I do
Speaker 1: fun things with my daughter. The grandchildren are are a
Speaker 1: little bit young. Um. You know my grandchild, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been around him quite a bit, watched him a
Speaker 1: little bit. But you know he's at an age When
Speaker 1: I first saw him the first day was born. I
Speaker 1: was the first outsider to see him. Um, but you
Speaker 1: know he's two and a half to less than two
Speaker 1: and a half years or he's still Mommy's a boy,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, you and Brad y'all have and had
Speaker 1: a number of conversations, right, UM, I won't just want
Speaker 1: to know, like, how does a guy like you be friendly? Guy? Like?
Speaker 1: How does a guy like you be a friend of
Speaker 1: guy like this? Mean? You know, like he's just him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's incorrigible. Um. No, as I am curious to
Speaker 1: know Mr Jackson, Like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: what would you want it to read up under your
Speaker 1: name in those lights? What would you want to be
Speaker 1: said about you? I would want it to be said that, Um,
Speaker 1: Mr Jackson was a great teammate in life, h Um
Speaker 1: was a person you could count on, was always there
Speaker 1: for you. Um that thought of his friends and family
Speaker 1: and people that he could help at least as much,
Speaker 1: uh of he thought as least as much as he
Speaker 1: thought of himself. Willing to help his friends and give
Speaker 1: to his friends with everything that he owned or had. Um,
Speaker 1: honest and honorable. He's a man with a good heart
Speaker 1: and a person you can count on. I ain't no
Speaker 1: doubt about Larry knew this. I just wanted the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. Now you are working, You are working
Speaker 1: with the astros these Yes, UM, I see you and
Speaker 1: Mr Crane together all the time. Tell me about Mr Crane?
Speaker 1: Is he is? He? Is he cool as I think
Speaker 1: he is. Jim Crane is a a man that's on
Speaker 1: a wonderful mission. I agree. UM. You know his level
Speaker 1: of intelligence, He's he's brilliant. UM has tremendous comprehension of
Speaker 1: his surroundings UM, his environment, UM, the environment he participates in. UM.
Speaker 1: He has great understanding of it and does translate his
Speaker 1: his success. And you would use the term his wealth UM.
Speaker 1: And his wealth is beyond h. He cannot the economics
Speaker 1: of it, but he has a wealth of knowledge of
Speaker 1: people and has an ability to create solutions for the
Speaker 1: problems that he can make a difference in. And I
Speaker 1: find those differences that he wants to make change in.
Speaker 1: Is leveling the player the playing field of diversity. UM.
Speaker 1: He does feel for the person that can't that can't
Speaker 1: help themselves. UM. And I think he's committed to it.
Speaker 1: I think he's accept accepts the burden that has been
Speaker 1: put on his shoulders to make change for the underserved,
Speaker 1: to make the the playing field, the path, the carved
Speaker 1: one that has the signs of six says written every
Speaker 1: mile or two. I'm one in the world here that
Speaker 1: that's That's how I feel about the jewel. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: They're trying to make sure that somebody else's He's concerned
Speaker 1: about others. And if you see him walk around and
Speaker 1: walk through life, um uh, he will reach down and
Speaker 1: pick up a piece of trash that's in the stadium,
Speaker 1: that's clutter. He does that on the teabox, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: pick up a broken teeth, up the broken teeth. Um.
Speaker 1: He does want to make a difference for the better.
Speaker 1: Gets dumbfounded when people are I can't understand. Um, just
Speaker 1: doing it the right way, just do what's right. Um.
Speaker 1: I believe that he in my three hours of success.
Speaker 1: Um in the business world is the residual of doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. As revenue, don't worry about margin. I
Speaker 1: don't worry about how much you're gonna get if you
Speaker 1: do it right. People aren't concerned about what they pay.
Speaker 1: People want you to do them right and then they'll
Speaker 1: pay you. Are there any parallels between George stein Berner
Speaker 1: stein Brenner and and Jim and Jim Crane that that
Speaker 1: you see as was the way that they operate their teams. Um.
Speaker 1: They both have a penchant for excellence. George thought that
Speaker 1: we should be perfect as a team. He thought, since
Speaker 1: he had the highest pay role with his team game,
Speaker 1: that we should be a hunter s. He couldn't understand
Speaker 1: how you know you could? Just you're better than that guy.
Speaker 1: So why can't you hit a home run? Off? And
Speaker 1: when you want to or when you need to, you
Speaker 1: got to. You had three chances today. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: you're better than he is. Why don't you win? Um?
Speaker 1: And UM? I see uh, I see some similarities with
Speaker 1: the demand for excellence and the demand to be the
Speaker 1: best you possibly can be. UM. Jim has a penchant
Speaker 1: for being a champion. He has a pensiont for pensant
Speaker 1: for being first, for being the leader. Uh. Mostly because
Speaker 1: he has the capability to understand it, plan it, and
Speaker 1: do it, and so he's disappointed if if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: because he knows he has the ability to be number one.
Speaker 1: You know, to be first, and so he's disappointed when
Speaker 1: he's not. You know, we were there last year in
Speaker 1: the World Series and we were losing to Atlanta in
Speaker 1: the sixth game, and uh, he said, damn it, I
Speaker 1: just can't wait till it's over. It's terrible being here
Speaker 1: like this. I said, well, there's thirty other teams at
Speaker 1: home that would love to be in your spot. M hm.
Speaker 1: And he kind of looked at me. So I guess
Speaker 1: you're right. But you know, he wanted to want to win,
Speaker 1: and for that you admire him. And he starts over
Speaker 1: that day that we lose, he started over again, trying
Speaker 1: to build a winner and build the champion to get
Speaker 1: back to the World Series in two thousand and twenty two.
Speaker 1: We have a chance. M Yeah. That was one of
Speaker 1: my questions. I want to know, like, what do you
Speaker 1: think our chances well this year? Um, we're not the
Speaker 1: best team yet. Uh. We're in first place by eight
Speaker 1: or nine games, and we're fourteen or fifteen games over
Speaker 1: something like that. Um, and we haven't hit yet. We
Speaker 1: can be better. We haven't played We've played pretty good
Speaker 1: defense defensively, we need to get better defensively, and we
Speaker 1: haven't hit well at all, I'll bet you we're in
Speaker 1: below middle of the pack offensively. Okay, would be interesting, Kyle,
Speaker 1: look that up, buddy. So so, so, what do we
Speaker 1: have to do to get better? Your players have to hit.
Speaker 1: So we have the skills, we have the skill, we
Speaker 1: have the um skill positions. You know, we have a
Speaker 1: player to be able to make us one of the
Speaker 1: top teams offensively in the league. And they've been that,
Speaker 1: uh in the last few years. They strike out less,
Speaker 1: they're on base higher and higher percentage um. We put
Speaker 1: the ball and play more often than anybody else. We
Speaker 1: haven't done that this year. We're still in first place.
Speaker 1: We're not in a good division, and I think we're
Speaker 1: the only team in the division playing over five And
Speaker 1: I'm not really playing paying attention to a lot of
Speaker 1: that now. Because you're sixty games out, you're sixty two out,
Speaker 1: you've got a hundred to play. Everybody's gonna win fifty
Speaker 1: and everyone's gonna lose fifty. It's what you do with
Speaker 1: the other sixty two. M hm, oh, yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: win forty of those. Yeah, you gotta lose fifty on
Speaker 1: the win fifty. The other forty two. You win those
Speaker 1: and you have the other sixty two. You want to
Speaker 1: win forty forty two of them, and then you win
Speaker 1: ninety two games and you're in postseason somewhere. Yeah, are
Speaker 1: the four teams that you played for in your professional
Speaker 1: twenty one years? Which team did you enjoy playing for
Speaker 1: the most? I'm gonna answer it in amen, Yes, and
Speaker 1: that I was there longer. I was groomed and born
Speaker 1: with those guys eighteen, and I started in baseball at nineteen.
Speaker 1: I was in the big leagues at twenty. Um, and
Speaker 1: I played with Rudy and Bando and Raleigh Fingers and
Speaker 1: the Blue and kept Fish Hunter and all those guys
Speaker 1: like Pete Rose, he played with a camp And Arriss,
Speaker 1: what you speaking of Pete Rose, what do you think
Speaker 1: about this, him being denied the opportunity to be in
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. Um, Pete made his own bed
Speaker 1: more than once, so I want. But Pete Rose is
Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer and should be in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. There are murderers, racists, all that, and so
Speaker 1: Pete Rose gambled. He took him forever to admit it.
Speaker 1: But he fix on the games. No, he didn't fix
Speaker 1: the game. He just bet on it right, he should
Speaker 1: be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I mean it's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's like me and Willie betting. Yeah, he's been on
Speaker 1: this stuff, right, or he's been on another game. He
Speaker 1: bet on himself. But it doesn't matter though, right, m
Speaker 1: he bet on himself. Oh man. The trip part about
Speaker 1: it is that is that I bet you that some
Speaker 1: of the people that punished him also bet Hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you have betting now in the stadiums in
Speaker 1: some places they have betting in the stadium in Arizona
Speaker 1: Old base Yes, stop in the stadium. But see Peter's
Speaker 1: passes eligibility now like he's outside, right, they can bring
Speaker 1: him back because I thought after after a certain amount
Speaker 1: of years, you're no longer eligible. Draft games is on
Speaker 1: partially by Major League Baseball. Wow did you hear that?
Speaker 1: Ain't that something? Yeah? But but but you can't bait
Speaker 1: on you can't bet on baseball. Yeah, you can't be
Speaker 1: on football either, not as a player. But they own
Speaker 1: part of the gambling um businesses gambit and companies and
Speaker 1: partners with them using the grade UH system of aid
Speaker 1: to f What do you think Major League Baseball is
Speaker 1: in terms of racial diversity? Yes, is that the worst?
Speaker 1: That's that's that's the worst. That would be the worst,
Speaker 1: the worst. Why why is it so hard for Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball? You know too, don't have a real focus
Speaker 1: on change. They don't leadership doesn't have a real focus
Speaker 1: on change. Leaderships does at the top. So we're starting
Speaker 1: with the commissioner right, which started the commissioner's office, and
Speaker 1: then then the other leaders of the the most powerful teams.
Speaker 1: I can say that our team has the highest percentage
Speaker 1: of minorities working in its organization. We have four hundred employees,
Speaker 1: which would mean we have more than twenty or more
Speaker 1: of our workforce is minority women in lb G, t
Speaker 1: q UM, African American, Latin American, amor Asian. Is that
Speaker 1: management positions that is throughout the entire organization, management from
Speaker 1: the owner on down to you our on down to
Speaker 1: you know whomever is employed there. Yes, I want to
Speaker 1: be politically correct by not naming a position that you
Speaker 1: say from the owner to yes, So you want to
Speaker 1: you want to be politically correct and safe in all
Speaker 1: of our employment, well, I want. I would be curious
Speaker 1: to know how much of that percentage is African American,
Speaker 1: is specifically black, management. I want to say that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wants it our team to look like the city
Speaker 1: of Houston. And I understand the city of Houston is
Speaker 1: sixteen to eighteen percent minor African American. Can Yeah, we
Speaker 1: may be hiding that, and I think that I think
Speaker 1: that's thirty percent. I think Houston's thirty eight percent minority
Speaker 1: than that. Google it. It's gotta be Will you google,
Speaker 1: It's got to be more than that. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't trust their numbers though, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna even google it because because they'd be live.
Speaker 1: We've been stuck at thirty percent in this country for
Speaker 1: the last thirty years, you know, like they keep on
Speaker 1: saying black people represent We're around six between US and
Speaker 1: Latin American Latinos. Uh, it's around thirty three to thirty
Speaker 1: five percent of the population. The third it's Latinos and
Speaker 1: African American. And then I don't think that counts indigenous.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Draft day nineteen sixty six and the
Speaker 1: New York mess to news. Who were you thinking when
Speaker 1: they when they picked over you for that number one.
Speaker 1: I had had a meeting with our coach of the
Speaker 1: baseball team Bobby Winkles, who was from Arkansas, and I
Speaker 1: was the first African American ever they for them to
Speaker 1: ever have on the Arizona State baseball team, the number
Speaker 1: one baseball school in the country. And he called me
Speaker 1: and he said, Reggie, the draft is going to come
Speaker 1: up in a month or so, and he said, the
Speaker 1: New York Mets are not going to draft you. While
Speaker 1: you're heading shoulders above any other player in the country,
Speaker 1: They're not going to draft you because they think you
Speaker 1: will have social issues because you're dating a Mexican American.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, my middle name is Martinez, which
Speaker 1: comes from Latin America, comes from grandmother being Puerto Rican.
Speaker 1: What's the issue. He said, well, they think you're dating
Speaker 1: outside your race. I said, well tell him my mental name.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter. The Mets did not draft me because
Speaker 1: I was dating what they considered out of my race
Speaker 1: by dating a Mexican American. Did she look white? Did
Speaker 1: she have white features? She might have had white features
Speaker 1: and the nose and lips and mouth, but her skin
Speaker 1: was it's a color like mind, color of mind. You know,
Speaker 1: New York mess You are some lousy y'all, just lousy
Speaker 1: damn y'all allows it. Man, it's just just terrible, hard,
Speaker 1: just man. Because he was gonna have some issues, social issues.
Speaker 1: But who he was dating, yes, dating, not who he
Speaker 1: was married to, not who he had to drag to
Speaker 1: New York with him, somebody he was dating. First of all.
Speaker 1: It ain't none of the damn business. That's number one.
Speaker 1: She unless you some serious killers, some uh international terrorists,
Speaker 1: you know that. Yeah, you know what I'm saying that
Speaker 1: that that should not have mattered at all. That should
Speaker 1: not have mattered at all. She was a killer, all right,
Speaker 1: because she was. She was that fine. Man. I just think, Um,
Speaker 1: just hanging out with you, um the past couple of months,
Speaker 1: you and Mr Baker, this's the two thousand men himself.
Speaker 1: I'm just learning a lot and I appreciate that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of wisdom in the conversations that we have.
Speaker 1: And I just sit there and I just listened then,
Speaker 1: because it ain't nothing else you could do but just
Speaker 1: sit there and well, you know, and dealing with you
Speaker 1: scar um, your vantage point you're from whence you have come?
Speaker 1: H Uh? You get me really quickly. You get dusty
Speaker 1: of him being able to say things to you or
Speaker 1: look at you UM in with the conversation going on easily.
Speaker 1: You're easy to communicate with because you've lived what I've lived.
Speaker 1: You they have experienced it. UM. I'm the head of
Speaker 1: diversity for several companies I'm involved with. I'm probably the
Speaker 1: top guy here where they with the astros for diversity.
Speaker 1: I'm an expert. I've lived all the answers. M. There
Speaker 1: isn't too much you can ask me. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the reaction is going to be or what it
Speaker 1: should be. UM. You can get into you can go
Speaker 1: into a room and feel someone that's got issues with minorities.
Speaker 1: You can feel them. You know someone's in the room.
Speaker 1: What why why? Why? Why do you think people have
Speaker 1: so much animosity? So why do you have an issue
Speaker 1: with a minority? It's an insecurity You're you're insecure, UM,
Speaker 1: that that person is going to be treated as well
Speaker 1: as you are. And it's a tragedy. Does that matter though?
Speaker 1: It's who some people are because of their of their insecurity,
Speaker 1: because their ignorance, because of their lack of understanding of life. UM,
Speaker 1: because of the of the God that's in heaven, UM,
Speaker 1: what he's put in their heart. You're going against that um.
Speaker 1: To root against or pull against, or believe that you're
Speaker 1: better than someone else. Um is a sickness. It is
Speaker 1: a sickness. Who would understand? Who would want to who
Speaker 1: would want to stand uh over a man? What type
Speaker 1: of man we want to stand over another man? I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to be your guy and uncivilized mud. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to it's it's an It's a very insecure person
Speaker 1: that's has a psychological or a mental issue, you know,
Speaker 1: the word that keeps coming to me. They're just so
Speaker 1: insecure about themselves that they want to make themselves or
Speaker 1: to talk to you as though they're better than you.
Speaker 1: And that's pure ignorance, Pure ignorance as pure it can
Speaker 1: possibly be by thinking that you're better than someone that
Speaker 1: bleeds red blood. Come on, UM, When I look across
Speaker 1: the room and see this young man here, his heart's pure,
Speaker 1: he has no negative thoughts in his mind. And so
Speaker 1: for me to think that he's because of his color,
Speaker 1: he's less than me with the purity of his heart
Speaker 1: and mind. M How sick do I have to be
Speaker 1: to have that thought? Where's where is my head? Have
Speaker 1: to be or have been? How ignorant am I? What?
Speaker 1: What a fool, am I I'm I'm in a breach
Speaker 1: with God. You're you're troubled. I gotta be troubled to
Speaker 1: think that. I did not think of him as a
Speaker 1: pure person that's unimpacted with what is told by his
Speaker 1: parents or what he hears. It's also pure what he
Speaker 1: gets help him keep the wind beneath his wings. Why
Speaker 1: would you want to pull that down? Why would you
Speaker 1: want to say something negative to a child of God?
Speaker 1: They're up to one to like. Really, you know, I
Speaker 1: was in my shop. I have a car shop and
Speaker 1: General Motors and all the big companies who come into California.
Speaker 1: I'm connected with some car dealers and they want to Reggie,
Speaker 1: would you entertain our people have coming in town? Can
Speaker 1: they come by your shop? You make time? I said sure.
Speaker 1: I always have had probably seven or eight visits like
Speaker 1: that for manufacturers, and they come by my place. And
Speaker 1: I have a newspaper article from Charleston, South Carolina with
Speaker 1: the sale of sleeves hanging in my shop. And then
Speaker 1: people say, well, what do you have that for? I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I haven't forgotten. I wanted you to know
Speaker 1: I didn't forget. On my office door there's a plaque
Speaker 1: made out of metal that I bought in Charleston, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and it says no colored, And why you got that
Speaker 1: on your door? I don't want to forget. And so
Speaker 1: I've had people there. It was a manufacturer that came
Speaker 1: through my place. I won't mention it. I'm still acted
Speaker 1: with him. And uh. The guy asked me if there
Speaker 1: was a gentleman there, and he said, Reggie, why do
Speaker 1: you have the sale of colored for slaves? And I said,
Speaker 1: I want to remember the term colored. I said, I'd
Speaker 1: been Nigra color, Nigger, African American, black, multicultural, royd, n Royd,
Speaker 1: I've been all those things. I want to remember that, dude.
Speaker 1: And I said there was a children there and grandchildren,
Speaker 1: and there was a child there that was ten and
Speaker 1: I said, have you ever heard the term colored before?
Speaker 1: And she said, oh yes, Mr Jackson, I sure have.
Speaker 1: Are you serious? And I said to the parents, I said,
Speaker 1: that breaks my heart. This was about ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I said that breaks my heart because I didn't think
Speaker 1: my daughter, who was oh now or fifteen would have
Speaker 1: to go through that. But I see that she's twelve
Speaker 1: and she's ten years in because she's ten and she's
Speaker 1: heard the term. She heard it at home or in school,
Speaker 1: in her environment. She didn't make it up. Wow, I said,
Speaker 1: So that's painful to me. And man, everybody got quiet
Speaker 1: for three or four minutes. It wasn't an uncomfortable quiet
Speaker 1: for me, but it was for a lot of other
Speaker 1: people that were there. See I called I called bs
Speaker 1: on On Hayden a person based on that skin color.
Speaker 1: And this is why our strongest convictions that we have
Speaker 1: in life comes from people who look like us. In
Speaker 1: most cases, if you were abused as a child, you
Speaker 1: were probably abused by somebody who looks like you. If
Speaker 1: you will or had a French friend who betrayed you,
Speaker 1: it was probably somebody who looked like you. If you
Speaker 1: got chased tone from school, it was probably somebody who
Speaker 1: looked like you got passed over for the promotion. Probably
Speaker 1: if somebody looked like you. If you're white, if if
Speaker 1: if there's a situation where a person cheated on you,
Speaker 1: that person probably somebody that looked like you. So these
Speaker 1: things are really what helps develop our character. It makes
Speaker 1: us who we are. But then you decide, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna hate all those people that did all that
Speaker 1: shipped to me personally, I'm not gonna hate them. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hate them because I don't like what they look like. See,
Speaker 1: that's why I call bs. This is just and and
Speaker 1: so they these are just excuses that people use two
Speaker 1: to just to f I bad behavior. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: It's just just people that you know, like like it's
Speaker 1: it's like Reggie was saying, like, these are people who
Speaker 1: are just that have a low they they have a
Speaker 1: little self esteem, and they have they have a load
Speaker 1: like a standard for themselves. They just don't like themselves.
Speaker 1: It's just like the guy who went out and did
Speaker 1: the shooting in Buffalo, he called himself a white supremacist. No,
Speaker 1: you're not a white supremacist. You're a white inferioritist. That's
Speaker 1: what you are. Because if I'm if I feel superior
Speaker 1: over someone, why would I throw my life away for
Speaker 1: somebody As much as I hate you, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go kill you and kill you and kill you and
Speaker 1: kill you and then go spend the rest of my
Speaker 1: days in jail. I'm superior. Why am I throwing my
Speaker 1: life away for you. I'm not even thinking about you
Speaker 1: because I'm superior. See so they're not superior. They don't
Speaker 1: even believe that they're superior. They use the white supremacy
Speaker 1: thing so that they can get paid after they go
Speaker 1: do some dumb shit, or so they can be honored
Speaker 1: in some type of way by the sick bastards out
Speaker 1: there who think like them. There's no way possible that
Speaker 1: if I consider myself a supremacist, what I throw my
Speaker 1: life away over people who I think are lower than me.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who gave up on life. He
Speaker 1: couldn't hack it. He gave up on life. His storas
Speaker 1: didn't want to get up and go do it. Billions
Speaker 1: of people do every every day. Get up, go to work,
Speaker 1: get up, go to school, study, whatever you gotta do.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to do it. He wasn't good with girls,
Speaker 1: he was socially awkward, no friends, and so he's filling
Speaker 1: down and done with life. So let me just go
Speaker 1: out with a bang and go after them. You did
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. That's what that's about. It man, Low
Speaker 1: self esteem, that's all it is. And it's the people
Speaker 1: who don't who think very low of themselves. You got
Speaker 1: to think low of yourself to go out and just
Speaker 1: like a guy who would be a simp that go
Speaker 1: out and and and harm a woman because the woman
Speaker 1: rejected him. Right, this is a guy. Why would you
Speaker 1: throw your life away? Okay, she she she, she stepped
Speaker 1: out on you. She's nothing, she's all these names you're
Speaker 1: calling her. So why are you sitting in jail. Why
Speaker 1: didn't you put a gun in your head and kill
Speaker 1: yourself for somebody who was all of these derogatory words
Speaker 1: that you just called her? Why that is because you
Speaker 1: can't hack it. You feel low, you have low self esteem,
Speaker 1: you feel worthless, and the only way that you know
Speaker 1: how to make yourself feel some type of relief just
Speaker 1: for a moment, it's to harm somebody else. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it. That's where we y'all. And so I can
Speaker 1: just man, I I can imagine some of the things,
Speaker 1: like I can't. I can't even imagine because some of
Speaker 1: the things that I keep hearing about what happened back
Speaker 1: in the slave days, and I'm going like, wow, man,
Speaker 1: that's just crazy. I just I have a calendar in
Speaker 1: the back of my truck right now, and it's a
Speaker 1: year calendar. But on every day of the year, that's
Speaker 1: gonna say something that happened to black people. I want
Speaker 1: to go grab that and I want to see what happened,
Speaker 1: you know, in the month of June. Just read all
Speaker 1: some stuff that happened. I was June tenth. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and pull it up and we're gonna see what
Speaker 1: happened on June teenth. I'm gonna be like on on
Speaker 1: on uh July seven, eighteen sixty fifteen, people were hung
Speaker 1: and like it'll ever tell you what happened on that
Speaker 1: day on this on me And I think we should
Speaker 1: keep that in here and bringing up on every one
Speaker 1: of our podcasts so people can know what happened on
Speaker 1: this day. Interesting. In fact, I'm gonna go grab it
Speaker 1: while you and listen. Jackson The Voids Reloaded podcast will
Speaker 1: be right back after the poet. Let me mask you
Speaker 1: something I see I see, I see you sitting there
Speaker 1: eating this this salad and uh, you know that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite pastimes is to sit around eat salads. Uh.
Speaker 1: But how how um cognizant of view of your health
Speaker 1: these days? And it's just in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: keeping yourself fitting and eating the right kind of foods.
Speaker 1: Is this something you do all the time, Like you
Speaker 1: eat salads all the time. UM. I try to eat
Speaker 1: um for my health. UM. I focus on superfoods, whether
Speaker 1: it be broccoli or spinach, or whether it be kale
Speaker 1: or sweet potato. UM. Those types of things avocado, UM deep,
Speaker 1: the dark greens if you will, the different fruits and
Speaker 1: nuts that are healthy for you. The berries that are
Speaker 1: that are the blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, UM. Those that
Speaker 1: help you with antioxidants UM. Those that give you energy, UM,
Speaker 1: those that have cures for pain, if you will. And uh,
Speaker 1: there are so many of the fruits that we can
Speaker 1: take and include this part of our diet that help
Speaker 1: us with our health. Be a diabetes, be a rheumatoidis um.
Speaker 1: Be at the different pains and joint pain that pains
Speaker 1: that you get as you continue to grow, old, arthritis, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Are foods that you can eat um to help you
Speaker 1: get better and stay healthy. I was reading a book
Speaker 1: about health and about food and intake. And Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: a belief. I'm of the belief that God has put
Speaker 1: an awful lot of cures on earth, between nuts and
Speaker 1: fruits and the vegetables and things like that that you
Speaker 1: can eat UM to keep yourself healthy. You made a career, Yeah,
Speaker 1: making your body work for you, using your body with athletics,
Speaker 1: and and I'm just wondering, like, um, I've always been
Speaker 1: an athletic guy myself. I never played a pro sports
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Well, I had a few provides,
Speaker 1: but being healthy and using my body and my having
Speaker 1: you know, uh, speed and agility has always been and
Speaker 1: being in strength has always been important to me. But
Speaker 1: you know, get the older you get, of course you
Speaker 1: start losing some of those things, soility, getting getting getting
Speaker 1: range in the left hook, come, come, come a little closer.
Speaker 1: So but my question, my question to you is like
Speaker 1: it's like, when do you do you Like, Uh, you're
Speaker 1: twenty years older than me. So when you look back
Speaker 1: again at that fifty six, when you were fifty six
Speaker 1: and where you are right now, how much has changed
Speaker 1: about your body? Um, I've lost a lot of muscle density,
Speaker 1: uh in my body. Um. You know I do have
Speaker 1: some arts right to send my body, you know, which
Speaker 1: is a change. Um. I developed arthritis about eight nine
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, and I'm seventy six, which is late
Speaker 1: to develop those kind of things. Um. Miraculously I still
Speaker 1: see without glasses. I use glasses um to help my
Speaker 1: vision at night, but I can read without. I can
Speaker 1: read the calendar without glasses. Um. You know with that
Speaker 1: small print there, Um, the muscle density goes away, your
Speaker 1: strength goes away, your balance and equilibrium goes away. You know,
Speaker 1: so you meaning your stability. Um. Do you have to
Speaker 1: be intentional when you're walking? Um? Well, you know I
Speaker 1: won't say intentional, but you need to pay more attention. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to say there's Uh. The greatest percentage of
Speaker 1: death with elderly people over seventy is a fall and
Speaker 1: something you hit your head somewhere. Um. So being careful
Speaker 1: of where you place your feet from time to time,
Speaker 1: watch what you do, and going up and downstairs, running
Speaker 1: up and downstairs. When you get to be older, you
Speaker 1: don't have the spring that your feet have recognized between
Speaker 1: the stairs. You can be a bit short. You'll stumble
Speaker 1: with things like that, which is part of growing Oldso
Speaker 1: just pay attention, pay attention, learn how to eat, do
Speaker 1: some kind of exercise. UM. I like to walk to
Speaker 1: the three miles um three or four days a week.
Speaker 1: I like to go to the gym. Is many is
Speaker 1: four to five days a week, even if you're going
Speaker 1: to gym for thirty forty minutes. You can get a
Speaker 1: workout in in forty minutes easy. Do you like? You
Speaker 1: just do it because you know you need to do
Speaker 1: I like the results. I'd rather not go, but I
Speaker 1: like the results of what happens with me. UM. I
Speaker 1: still walk straight up. I don't slump or hunch uh.
Speaker 1: And that's from weights and things like that. UM. I
Speaker 1: lift weights in the in the shower every morning. Five
Speaker 1: pound weight for my shoulders because my shoulders are arthritic.
Speaker 1: But if if you keep them just a little five
Speaker 1: pound weight, it'll keep your skin tight, keep your muscles toned,
Speaker 1: and as you uh develop the muscles around the arthritic
Speaker 1: joint it will help you with the bone on bone
Speaker 1: action that you have when they're arthritic. It lessens the
Speaker 1: pain in your body with arthritis if you're strengthening the
Speaker 1: muscles around the joints where the arthritis is, which means
Speaker 1: in your hands, your shoulders, your knees, and hips. Yeah,
Speaker 1: five pounds five pound weightways, get on it brand. Yeah
Speaker 1: you can. You can get a three pound weight and
Speaker 1: five pound weight you can grab in the shower. Gravitate, gravitate.
Speaker 1: You don't think that's dangers lifting wasting the shower. Not really.
Speaker 1: I want to get too high black out to hit
Speaker 1: myself and the head would wait and be knocked that
Speaker 1: even longer with my luck. Love, bro, I ask you earlier,
Speaker 1: you know what team you you prefer playing for? You
Speaker 1: know which team you had. I enjoyed the age, enjoy
Speaker 1: But what city you lived in? A lot of places,
Speaker 1: what city have you enjoyed the motion of it in? Well,
Speaker 1: I would say that I really did enjoy New York. Um.
Speaker 1: I love the intensity, love the action, love the quickness
Speaker 1: and the speed of the city, the pulse of the city. Um.
Speaker 1: Their appreciation for their their their idols and heroes of
Speaker 1: which I became one, you know by playing there, like
Speaker 1: Joe Namath, Willis Ree, Lawrence Taylor, Mickey Mantle, Joe d. Jeter,
Speaker 1: you know all those guys that have been very successful
Speaker 1: and and been honored. Marianna Rivera Um, Oakland is always
Speaker 1: and will always be a very special place for me.
Speaker 1: I still own a home there. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: always appreciated the fact that they had a significant minority
Speaker 1: population there, and I enjoyed being successful there for because
Speaker 1: my people had a great appreciation for my success they shared.
Speaker 1: I feel like they shared it with me or I
Speaker 1: shared it with them, and still to this day when
Speaker 1: I go back. They had a fifty year reunion with
Speaker 1: the World Series team of seventy two, and we'll do
Speaker 1: that the next two years. We have a fifty year
Speaker 1: reunion in seventy three and a fifty year reunion in
Speaker 1: seventy four because we won three years in a row.
Speaker 1: So Gene Tennis, who was the Most Valuable Player of
Speaker 1: the World Series in seventy two, he had four home runs.
Speaker 1: He threw out the first pitch and he walked up
Speaker 1: in front of the man and I was standing next
Speaker 1: to Raleigh Fingers, and he said, now, what this is
Speaker 1: telling me is they're having the m v P throughout
Speaker 1: the first pitch. So a year from now, you're going
Speaker 1: to throw it out. And he said, two years from now,
Speaker 1: it's going to be my turn. He says, I hope
Speaker 1: the hell I can do it when I'm seventy seven.
Speaker 1: So so at seventies, seventies six, seventy seven, seventy eight,
Speaker 1: seventy nine, eighty, do you see yourself still, you know,
Speaker 1: working with the Astros or working in some capacity with
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. I'll be working with Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: and I'll be working with the Astros if Jim Crane
Speaker 1: is here, because he's a special friend and a special guy,
Speaker 1: and I think he gets success and I think he
Speaker 1: we have a friendship that it's long lasting and special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can all take a page out of his playbook,
Speaker 1: you know, great to be a great human being. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: we should all take a page out his playbook. He's fair,
Speaker 1: very very yeah. Yeah, let's see what happened. Let's see
Speaker 1: what happened to day in this month. I just picked
Speaker 1: a day jun the fifties. It's the fourteen whatever of fourteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. Two young black girls, fourteen year old
Speaker 1: Many and twelve year old Merely Mary Alice Ralph are
Speaker 1: sterile sterilized at a health clinic in Montgomery, Alabama without
Speaker 1: their knowledge of consent. He's why black people to this day,
Speaker 1: I fear going to the doctor because we've been used
Speaker 1: as guinea pigs about the years. We'll have a June,
Speaker 1: eighteen months after the Emancipation Proclamation is signed, enslaved black
Speaker 1: people in Texas finally learn about it when Union troops
Speaker 1: arrived and tell them the Confederacy lost the Civil War.
Speaker 1: What do you think about these UH politicians actively passing
Speaker 1: laws to prevent critical race theory from being taught in schools?
Speaker 1: Defiant from it? So so critical race theory is is
Speaker 1: putting the information out there about slavery. They're they're saying,
Speaker 1: you don't want you to teach it, like the true
Speaker 1: history of America, like stuff that really happened during slavery
Speaker 1: and and even post slavery, Jim Crown. They don't want
Speaker 1: that taught in schools because they say it makes white
Speaker 1: children feel bad. A lot in Florida right now, they're
Speaker 1: saying that you can't make um a group of people,
Speaker 1: a certain group of people feel bad for for you know,
Speaker 1: the pain that they inflicted or another group of people.
Speaker 1: I disagree with it because I want young African Americans
Speaker 1: to know what all African Americans went through and why
Speaker 1: you're folks. When I say folks, I mean the generations
Speaker 1: before you. The younger generation needs to know what you
Speaker 1: went through, what you think about in quiet moments, why
Speaker 1: you may snap at someone or why someone may say,
Speaker 1: young fella. You'll learn one day you'll have an understanding.
Speaker 1: It's part of the history of the country. It needs
Speaker 1: to be learned, and I would like whether they teach
Speaker 1: it or not in school. I think it should be
Speaker 1: taught in school because it's what the history of the
Speaker 1: country is. We as parents should at the dinner table
Speaker 1: in the life of that young person be told what happened,
Speaker 1: what his parents and his grandparents and his great grades
Speaker 1: went through. It's it's it's pretty simple. This gentleman is thirteen.
Speaker 1: How old are you, son? Fourteen? So his mom, let's
Speaker 1: give her twenty years. Let's give her thirty four. Her
Speaker 1: parents are in their fifties or sixties. Their parents are
Speaker 1: in their nineties. Okay, so nine years ago, it's nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty bitter bitter racism. Uh, then that's great. That's great parents,
Speaker 1: great grandparents. Your great greats are in the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 1: That's about as harsh and as bitter as it could
Speaker 1: be for a black person with castrations when you did
Speaker 1: something wrong with the um, when they're accused you of
Speaker 1: doing something wrong with with the passing of your children
Speaker 1: and and grandchildren at the age of twelve to fifteen,
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, to go to the house and be
Speaker 1: slept with it raped by the owner of the house
Speaker 1: or the owner of the slaves. Um getting caught when
Speaker 1: you tried to break away and bring brought back to
Speaker 1: the plantation and have everyone come outside and watch as
Speaker 1: they took four horses and tied it to your two
Speaker 1: arms and your two legs and ripped you apart in
Speaker 1: front of every one. That needs to be remembered and
Speaker 1: recognized as to what happened as to why you are
Speaker 1: who you are today because of the things that were
Speaker 1: inflicted and the experiences that your folks and your family
Speaker 1: and your bloodline went through. Um, why that your your
Speaker 1: grandparents or why some of the athletes in my era
Speaker 1: had the determination and the drive to be successful. Um
Speaker 1: that they were fighting for dignity or for a sandwich
Speaker 1: to eat or heat in the house. That you're you're
Speaker 1: strong striving for success was life or death? Three? Yeah.
Speaker 1: In regrets, I probably wish I would have had four
Speaker 1: or five children because I had the capability of raising
Speaker 1: and in a good environment and getting them good educations
Speaker 1: and being positive impact to community mhm um. And I
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed selfishly. I would have enjoyed it. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: this has been a spirited discussion. We really do appreciate
Speaker 1: you in part your wisdom. I tell you, like as
Speaker 1: much as I've admired you on the field, off the
Speaker 1: field even more. Yeah, you know, I think there's a
Speaker 1: I sense a commitment and Brad scar I then call
Speaker 1: me Brad. I don't even likes going on. One wrote
Speaker 1: we world it out so bad on stage until I
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to be scarred Jackson JJ actually, um,
Speaker 1: he used to be. I really do think that what
Speaker 1: you're doing or you're trying to do is enormously important
Speaker 1: to pass on from, be it Dr j or Reggie
Speaker 1: or Michael Jordan's or Jeter Frank o' harris and the
Speaker 1: guys that broke the barriers and lived it difficulty. They
Speaker 1: have stories to tell. And you know Bill Russell who's
Speaker 1: about ninety now, he's going to take it with him
Speaker 1: and he hasn't been heard by the youth of today.
Speaker 1: And young people need to hear your what we experienced
Speaker 1: and what we lived with and what drove us and
Speaker 1: why you need to keep the bloodline going and keep
Speaker 1: the success in the drive um and and what gives
Speaker 1: you the impetus to to be successful and what you
Speaker 1: need to prove still you're still less than You're still
Speaker 1: not equal. Your community is still being impacted, pushed aside
Speaker 1: and be down. And you need to hear that and
Speaker 1: recognize that you've got a chance to make it. And
Speaker 1: when you make it, get back to your community. Share,
Speaker 1: tell the stories, Tell the things that gave you the
Speaker 1: drive and made you keep going. Talk about the things
Speaker 1: that are important, Talk about continuity and support for family,
Speaker 1: talk about support for your community. And going to a
Speaker 1: grocery store and running into another colored person, black purse
Speaker 1: and negro minority, nod to them. Acknowledge that you're part
Speaker 1: of their fraternity. Don't ignore, don't turn the other way,
Speaker 1: look at the person and let them see you and
Speaker 1: nod and how are you kind of nod? I see you,
Speaker 1: I'm here with you. Good to see you with a nod.
Speaker 1: That we need to promote that teach that needs to
Speaker 1: permeate our community. We need to be together and not
Speaker 1: only blacks, but white stew and Latinos and and Amiration
Speaker 1: and the Indigenous, the American Indian UM. American Indian has
Speaker 1: been abused just as much as we have. UM. You
Speaker 1: take a look at the Jews. I've always had an
Speaker 1: affinity for Jews. They've been beat down and murdered for
Speaker 1: no reason at all, none same as us. Six million
Speaker 1: Jews were murdered, and it's either eighteen million or or
Speaker 1: thirty million African Americans. Um, and how many of the indigenous?
Speaker 1: How many of the Indians? The Indians were here first?
Speaker 1: This ain't you? This ain't you at land? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: Of all the Indians that lived in the southeastern part
Speaker 1: of the country in Florida, and all the names of
Speaker 1: the towns of Indian names, they went and gathered all
Speaker 1: those people and made them walk through the the tears
Speaker 1: of the trail of tears, Okay, and walked to across
Speaker 1: the Mississippi, no food, nothing, the trail of tears. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite it's not quite exactly that, but google it.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible story of what they did to the
Speaker 1: Indian in this country and how they've given them um
Speaker 1: money reparations and then the worst land in the country
Speaker 1: to live on, trail of trail of tears to yeah,
Speaker 1: tears of will we gonna have it? Could you find it?
Speaker 1: Um tears? Kyle? Did you find it? It's approximately six
Speaker 1: in Hey, God, did you find it? What's it? Say? So?
Speaker 1: The lot. What's what's the title trailer? Tears? Here you
Speaker 1: go ts Tears the series of fourth displacements, approximately sixty
Speaker 1: thousand American England. Well made him walk sure dead, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sure dead. And I don't even know about that. People.
Speaker 1: It's always a mind blowing conversation with you. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and let you finish your salad now.
Speaker 1: But fantastic, man, Absolutely fantastic. I roomed with a guy
Speaker 1: by the name of Brady Walker and call. I got
Speaker 1: a note from a guy the other day on one
Speaker 1: of the social mediums. He said, so and so I
Speaker 1: went to college with you, and he's really sick. She
Speaker 1: passed away and he's going to be honored. And he
Speaker 1: was your roommate in college. I was sitting with a
Speaker 1: few guys and I said, let me tell you about
Speaker 1: this story. When I went to college, there were no color.
Speaker 1: That room with whites. Said again, when I went to
Speaker 1: college there were no color, There were no colored rooming
Speaker 1: with whites. I couldn't room with a white guy. You couldn't.
Speaker 1: How are you going to room with me? It was
Speaker 1: sixty four. They allowed me grows to vote in nineteen
Speaker 1: I remember that you could you couldn't. I didn't say nothing.
Speaker 1: I just kind of chuckled to myself where somebody was
Speaker 1: wanting me to come or say something or pick up
Speaker 1: in video. Reggie, your root college room may die. He
Speaker 1: told that story. Well he didn't tell it to a
Speaker 1: colored person because then somebody would have said, when was
Speaker 1: that number sixty four? Really? Yeah, Reggie bro No, we'll
Speaker 1: know white boy won't be rooming with him and weren't allowed.
Speaker 1: I was the first guy to have a white roommate
Speaker 1: in baseball. Guy's name is Joe Rudy. It was big news. Really,
Speaker 1: that was big news. So I didn't know what to
Speaker 1: say to that guy. Man, you do you respond? Now?
Speaker 1: You should? I say? Come buy? Like Mohammed Ali Mohammed said.
Speaker 1: We were talking and he said, oh he saw a
Speaker 1: picture of the Last Supper. It said, Mama, I don't
Speaker 1: see no no colored angels sitting up there. I know
Speaker 1: there was colored angels, wasn't he? Where's all the color
Speaker 1: that this is the last super? Are they? They ain't
Speaker 1: in the kitchen fixing the biscuits in the honey. I
Speaker 1: had to tell that story every once in a while
Speaker 1: to bring some levity to that, to the horror boy
Speaker 1: levity to the horror Yeah, Brady Walker was my roommate
Speaker 1: in college. That's the one that's sick and dad. He
Speaker 1: was six four no, so somebody just Brady was coloring
Speaker 1: Brady Brother Mississippi, you know. And he had a stammer,
Speaker 1: stuttered super guy. His family without send him corn bread
Speaker 1: and biscuits, you know, out cookies to our dorm. And
Speaker 1: when we slept in the room, the womb wasn't no
Speaker 1: bigger than this right here, but it was plenty good
Speaker 1: for you know, him and me. You know, it's eat.
Speaker 1: The guy had four or five pairs of pants, one
Speaker 1: pair of dress shoes, one pair of sneakers, four or
Speaker 1: five pairs of socks, six pair underwear, a couple of
Speaker 1: T shirts and then you had you wore your football
Speaker 1: T shirts around and there was always your clothes. You know,
Speaker 1: you went to school and you came home and took
Speaker 1: your clothes off. Hum. Yeah, And we conversations with the
Speaker 1: white guys lived in the same dorm, and they would
Speaker 1: laugh at Brady because he stammered, super sweet guy, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, and I used to so he was stammered
Speaker 1: one day and they were laughing and I said, you
Speaker 1: know something, Joe, Joe and Jeff. One of these days,
Speaker 1: Brady is gonna get piste off because you're laughing at him.
Speaker 1: He's gonna jump on you and he's gonna beat your ass.
Speaker 1: For all those kids in Mississippi when he was five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: nine ten, Levenswum calling him the nigger, He's gonna jump
Speaker 1: on you and beat your ass and I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: do nothing about it. I'm gonna then after he beat
Speaker 1: your ass, I'm gonna drive you to the hospital. He
Speaker 1: just looked at me like that, and they got quiet,
Speaker 1: and we went back in the room and Brady, like
Speaker 1: I said, he would lay down his feet be over
Speaker 1: the end of the bed. Reggie, I'm okay. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to call my mama, tell him what you said.
Speaker 1: You talk to them white boys like you ain't got
Speaker 1: no problem. You ain't scared of nothing. I love to
Speaker 1: see you talk to them, and you want to know something,
Speaker 1: you gonna be right. One of these days if I
Speaker 1: ever get mad. There you when you was, when you
Speaker 1: was playing, and you know when you got that name,
Speaker 1: Mr October, did you ever feel any pressure to actually like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's the postseason and everything, and you got
Speaker 1: the name because of your your your ability to perform
Speaker 1: under pressure, but and in the in the clutch. But
Speaker 1: did you ever feel any pressure, any additional pressure in
Speaker 1: the postseason because us you had that title? Mr Otton,
Speaker 1: I guess if you look at Steph Curry or or
Speaker 1: Jordan's or any of those guys, Magic Johnson, Kobe Kareem,
Speaker 1: the greats. I really felt like when the postseason got close,
Speaker 1: I got better, and so I kind of relied on it.
Speaker 1: I relied on living up to the stories Paul Bunyan
Speaker 1: stories or the stories of what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1: I kind of said, well, getting close October, I'm will
Speaker 1: be doing the thing pretty quick, you'd better be careful.
Speaker 1: I'm come out with a capon. But I kind of
Speaker 1: got to the point to where I believe that, and
Speaker 1: then it gave me a confidence. Nice Well, thank you again, man.
Speaker 1: Play here of two. This episode was produced by Aching
Speaker 1: and brought to you by The Black Effect Podcast Network
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio.