Marissa

“Sports, particularly baseball, took on an outsize importance in Africatown. In addition to the teams for the school, each neighborhood and sometimes each street fielded its own baseball team, complete with uniforms. By the 1950s, kids coming out of Africatown’s baseball leagues were earning college scholarships, and often a chance to try out for the major leagues. In the 1960s, there were six men on Major League Baseball teams who grew up playing against each other on the Mobile County Technical School’s baseball diamond, a stunning feat for the tiny community. Two of Africatown’s sons, Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee, were stars on the World Series–winning New York Mets of 1969 known as the “Miracle Mets.” Cleon made the game-winning catch that clinched the championship for New York. All of Africatown crowded around radios during the game and erupted in cheers when they heard their hometown hero had won the game.”
― Ben Raines, The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning