I first reported to our Marlins spring training complex in Jupiter as well as the other draft picks to receive physicals and to sign contracts. From there I flew to Jamestown, NY to play for the Jamestown Jammers.
I started playing well and felt comfortable. That season a set a Jamestown record of consecutive innings pitched with out a walk. (40 2\3 innings, i think) and was named Jamestown Pitcher of the Year.
The 'Jamestown' set was so convincing. It had been raining for a few days before we started filming, and when we turned up, we were knee-high in mud. There were pigs and goats everywhere, too, which meant the whole place smelled pretty ripe. It definitely helped us enter the 'Jamestown' world immediately.
One of our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and we had family in Jamestown as well... I was raised where service was a part of the fabric of life. It wasn't one-upmanship. No one bragged about their medals, but you could see the look in the eyes, the tip of the hat. You served your country first, then you went to work and had a family.
Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow.
Filming 'Jamestown' in Budapest for six months felt like summer camp. There was a lovely cast of 16 actors, and we got along so well.
There, in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555 feet high. But if we put a one in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia as slaves.
Loyalty, support, and 'the sisterhood' are there in spades in 'Jamestown.'
From the moment we were first dumped in Jamestown and had our teeth checked before getting sold off and later considered three-fifths of a human being, an abundance of 'likability' hasn't been something blacks have had to stockpile. Instead, it's been a centuries-long battle for respectability.
I've been a lot of places and worked with a lot of different guys. High draft picks. Low draft picks.
There is something inexpressibly sad in the thought of the children who crossed the ocean with the Pilgrims and the fathers of Jamestown, New Amsterdam, and Boston, and the infancy of those born in the first years of colonial life in this strange new world.
The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the 20 who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. All of us had been taught that. Well, guess what? The first African came to Florida in 1513. And the huge shock is we know his name, Juan Garrido, and that he wasn't a slave. He was free! This brother was a conquistador who came with Ponce de Leon. He was looking for the Fountain of Youth just like the white people were.
The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the 20 who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. All of us had been taught that. The first African came to Florida in 1513. And the huge shock is we know his name, Juan Garrido, and that he wasn't a slave. He was free!
Jamestown was a very small town and I was thrilled to be there. It was interesting at first be adapting to the pro ball life style of being on the road alot and having a game almost every day but once I got use to it everything felt right.
Most African Americans, if given a chance, would have chosen to be 'just Americans' ever since the first of us was brought here to Jamestown colony in 1619, a year before the Mayflower landed. But that choice has never been left up to us.
On draft day, I wasn't really nervous at all. Then you turn on the draft, the first five picks go by, and then you still thinking, 'Oh man, I don't know where I'm going to go.' It's really just, by the time draft hits, that's when you get nervous.
Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.