Reggie Jackson is still hitting them out of the park.

Not since the former Yankee slugger clouted three home runs in a World Series game against the Dodgers in 1977 has Jackson done more with a pitch in the strike zone.

This time, it was Alex Rodriguez, of all people, serving up the fast ball.

The occasion was a nationally televised major league game last week honoring Willie Mays and the Birmingham, Alabama, ball field where the baseball legend began his professional career in the Negro Leagues.

Mays, one of the few players to hit more home runs than Jackson, had just died a couple of days before at the age of 93, which only added to the poignancy of a very emotional day.

Rodriguez, another former Yankees slugger, asked Jackson during the Fox Sports broadcast how he felt about returning to Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field, where he played in the minor leagues.

What followed was more than three minutes of brutal, painful honesty, and a clip to rival any of Jackson’s home run highlight reels.

Jackson, who played in Birmingham, spoke of the racism he endured with the Athletics’ Double-A team in 1967 before he was called up to the big leagues later that year.

“Coming back here is not easy,” Jackson said. “The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled. Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it. But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

Jackson didn’t leave out any details.

“I walked into restaurants, and they would point at me and say, ‘The n—r can’t eat here,’” Jackson said. “I would go to a hotel, and they would say, ‘The n—r can’t stay here.’”

Jackson said they went to team owner Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner.

“They pointed me out with the N-word: ‘He can’t come in here,’” Jackson recalled. “Finley marched the whole team out. He said, ‘We’re going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers. We’ll go where we’re wanted.’”

In his 21 big league seasons, Jackson was hit by a pitch 96 times. None of them stung more than what he endured during the 114 games he played for the Birmingham A’s.

“Fortunately, I had a manager in Johnny McNamara that, if I couldn’t eat in the place, nobody would eat,” Jackson said.

“We’d get food to travel. If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, they’d drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay. Had it not been for Rollie Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudi, 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.”

Fans who like their history in neat little boxes like to think that it was only Jackie Robinson who had to endure the racist taunts. Many understand that players like Mays and Henry Aaron. former Negro leaguers, also paid a price to pave the way for others.

But few would associate Reggie Jackson — who famously fought with Billy Martin, and clashed with Thurman Munson — with pioneers who suffered so future Black players could thrive in the game.

Much has been said about greatness in the days since Mays died. There have been endless highlight reels and a trove of warm tributes.

But no one, no one, did a better job of honoring Willie and Hank and Jackie, and Birmingham than the man known as Mr. October.

“People said to me today, ‘Do you think you’re a better person?’” Jackson said. “‘Do you think you won when you played here and conquered?’ I said, ‘You know, I would never want to do it again.’

Leonard Greene writes a column for New York Daily News.

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In 2013, a chemist named Annie Dookhan pleaded guilty to multiple charges relating to allegations that she’d falsified results while working at a laboratory that performed drug tests for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After her downfall, the lab where she worked was closed, and other staff chemists were investigated. Tens of thousands of drug cases were dismissed.

Here’s the kicker: At the time, some commentators argued that Dookhan’s misconduct might represent fallout from a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that when a forensic analyst performs tests that are used against criminal defendants –there was cocaine in his system; the blood alcohol was thus-and-so level — the technician must testify at trial, rather than, as in the past, submitting a written report. Because analysts were now forced to spend so much time in court, critics warned, they would have less time to run tests. Of course they’d cut corners.

All of which brings us to Friday’s decision in Smith v. Arizona, another narcotics prosecution, where the analyst whose tests determined that Joseph Smith possessed methamphetamines and other drugs didn’t appear at trial. (The court writes that “for unknown reasons” the tech “disappeared from the scene.” Yikes.) Another tech from the lab used the absent analyst’s notes as the basis of expert testimony. (Experts have broad freedom to rest their opinions on otherwise inadmissible evidence.) Smith was convicted.

The Supreme Court unanimously vacated the conviction, and although not all the justices agreed with the reasoning, Justice Elena Kagan’s majority opinion does seem to double down on the still-controversial rule that the tech who performs the test must come to court and be cross-examined — no matter what pressure this puts in the lab.

Some basics: The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to confront the witnesses against them. For most of the nation’s history, the requirement was relatively toothless. In 2004, however, the court revived the so-called Confrontation Clause, holding that when a wife who’d witnessed an alleged crime committed by her husband refused to testify against him, the prosecutions could not admit as a substitute her recorded statement to police about the incident. Why? Because her refusal to take the stand made it impossible for her husband to cross-examine her about her “testimonial” statement.

This revolutionary development, led jointly and defended fiercely by the late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was swiftly expanded, until, in 2009, the court held that a laboratory analyst who performed the tests on the substance deemed to be cocaine had to appear and be cross-examined. A sworn affidavit would not suffice. Along the way, the court rejected the claim that forensic technicians are simply performing “neutral” science.

Prosecutors who wanted the techs to stay in the labs tried various end-runs. Could a lab supervisor testify about the results, while the techs stayed in the lab, doing their work? The justices said no. OK, how about letting an expert witness rely on the tests — could the expert opine about the results without testimony from the tech? After all, experts are allowed to rest their opinions on evidence that’s not admissible. The justices said, um, well, er, we can’t actually get five votes for any answer.

But the answer matters enormously. True, the empirical evidence seems not to bear out the existence of what’s come to be known as the “CSI Effect” — the belief by jurors in the almost magical power of forensic science. (One study found that regular CSI viewers might actually be more skeptical than others about forensic testimony.) At the same time, forensic analysis — DNA, fingerprints, toolmarks, all the rest — remains crucial to many a criminal prosecution.

Unfortunately, crime labs aren’t much like what we see on television, where heroic detectives and idiosyncratic forensic experts have time to chat, play gags, protect each other from hired guns, and even date each other. In real life, forensic lab technicians regularly report high levels of stress. Due to their often gruesome work, many suffer PTSD-type symptoms. Crime labs are overworked pretty much everywhere. The pandemic shutdowns made things much worse.

Which leads us back to this week’s decision in Smith v. Arizona, where the court was expected to clear up the confusion. Instead, Justice Kagan’s majority opinion gives only half of the answer. When one tech testifies as an expert and relies on the work of another, writes Kagan, the jury is being asked to treat the absent analyst’s notes as true. That makes it hearsay. But the Confrontation Clause bars the expert’s opinion only if the notes are also testimonial — a term the justices have never rigorously defined, but which depends, Kagan tells us, on how the statements relate “to a future criminal proceeding.” Alas, the majority concluded that it didn’t have enough information to reach a decision on whether the absent analyst’s notes were testimonial, and sent the case back for further proceedings.

As for Dookhan, she’s out of prison, but continues to serve as Exhibit A for those who think the justices are right in their decade-and-a-half insistence that defense attorneys should have the chance to cross-examine lab techs. But although I’m glad the Supreme Court has revived the Confrontation Clause, the Dookhan scandal also suggests that cross-examination isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Over the three years before her arrest, Dookhan testified in more than 150 trials. No lawyer ever caught her in a lie.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

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It’s one of those long days, and your stomach growls as you scan your fridge. It seems overwhelming and a little stressful to cook, especially on the fly. So you order in. Again.

My job as a columnist at New York Times Cooking is to help ease your way into regularly making stress-free dinners. The payoff is big, because cooking from scratch is always more economical and healthier than takeout — and it can be almost as easy. You don’t need loads of time, fancy ingredients or a sous chef, just a little advance planning. Spending a couple of hours over the weekend to prep a few foundational elements is your key to breezy weeknight meals.

Wash and cut any vegetables for the coming week.

As soon as I get home on Saturday mornings with my farmers market haul, I prep the piles of greens and produce.

Wherever you do your shopping, the drill is the same: Wash all the salad and other greens (spinach, kale, chard, etc.), spin dry, roll them into clean dish towels and store them (with the towel) in plastic or produce bags in the fridge.

They’ll last at least a week, so you can turn them into salads with dressings you have on hand. The hardy greens can go into a skillet with garlic, ginger and chile for a quick cook, adding cut up chicken or tofu to make a stir-fry. Simply season to taste with soy sauce and sesame oil.

For simple cooking, wash, cut and store any sturdy vegetables (asparagus, carrots, squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, radishes, turnips). Even alliums like scallions, leeks and onions will last in the fridge, sliced or diced, for three or four days. Just avoid pre-chopping avocados, potatoes, eggplant or tomatoes; they don’t hold up as well.

Stock up on cooked rice.

Whether you use a rice cooker or a pot on the stove, keeping white or brown rice in the fridge is the secret to speedy meals (tuna mayo rice bowl, anyone?). Rice that’s a few days old works even better in stir-fries than fresh cooked, getting nice and crisp.

Prepare a pot of beans.

Beans cooked from scratch are less expensive and often taste a lot better than canned, especially when seasoned with garlic, avocado or bay leaves and herbs, as in frijoles de olla. Then savor them with the rice you also made.

Have a library of sauces at hand.

Heed the advice of my colleague Tanya Sichynsky, who writes a newsletter for vegetarian cooking, and assemble a sauce library (to which I’d add an annex for dressings and easy marinades). Then, borrow from it all week long to use on your rice, beans, salads and other easy meals.

For one-minute salads, make a blistered tomato dressing.

Even if you just try one or two of these strategies over the weekend, I guarantee your whole week will go better, or at least, a lot more flavorfully.

Frijoles de Olla (Homestyle Black Beans)

By Rick A. Martínez

This beloved dish often starts with unsoaked dried beans, which are traditionally cooked in an olla, earthenware pot, or other types of clay pots, such as a cazuela de barro. Any pot works, and the seasonings are generally simple — usually onion, garlic, herbs and sometimes lard or pork — but the resulting flavor is rich and complex. A staple throughout Mexico, this dish varies from region to region in the types of beans used and include pinto beans, black beans and Mayocoba beans. Eaten as is as a side or a main dish, frijoles de olla also can be puréed, smashed or refried and used as a sauce or a filling for dishes like tetelas.

Yield: 3 quarts

Total time: 2 hours 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 pound/453 grams dried black beans, rinsed and picked through
1/4 medium white onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 dried or fresh avocado or bay leaves
3 fresh epazote sprigs or a combination of parsley, oregano and mint sprigs
Fine sea salt

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large pot, combine the beans, onion, garlic, avocado leaves, epazote, 4 teaspoons salt and 16 cups of water. Bring to a boil over high. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook at a slow simmer, uncovered, skimming and stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender, 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours. Check the beans every hour to see if they need more water; the beans should always be covered by water. The cooking time will depend on how old the beans are; freshly dried beans can fully cook in 1 1/2 hours.

2. Remove and discard the herbs. Taste and season the beans with more salt if desired. The beans and their cooking liquid can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Or, make them up to 3 months ahead and freeze in an airtight container.

Tuna Mayo Rice Bowl

By Eric Kim

This homey dish takes comforting canned tuna to richer, silkier heights. Mayonnaise helps to hold the tuna together, and toasted sesame oil lends incomparable nuttiness. You can adjust the seasonings to your taste: Use as much or as little soy sauce as you’d like for a savory accent. You can lean into the nuttiness of this rice bowl by sowing the top with toasted sesame seeds, or amp up the savoriness with furikake or scallions. A staple of home cooking in Hawaii and South Korea (where it is sometimes called deopbap), this simple meal is a workday workhorse.

Yield: 1 serving

Total time: 5 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 (5-ounce) can tuna (preferably any variety stored in oil), well drained
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1 cup cooked white rice (preferably short- or medium-grain)
Toasted white or black sesame seeds, furikake or chopped scallions, for topping (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, stir the tuna, mayonnaise, sesame oil and soy sauce to combine.

2. Add the white rice to a bowl and spoon the tuna mixture on top. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, furikake or scallions, if using.

Recipe: Blistered Tomato Dressing

By Yewande Komolafe

A vinaigrette can be as simple as an emulsion of oil and vinegar, but a memorable one carries flavors that hint at the season. This one, featuring charred tomatoes, is perfect for summer. Blistering fresh tomatoes deepens their acidic sweetness. Made with sherry vinegar and olive oil, the dressing is at once earthy and bright.

Yield: About 2 cups

Total time: 20 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 pound tomatoes (about 3 medium) or 2 pints cherry tomatoes
1 shallot, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal), plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat a broiler to high. Place the tomatoes on a sheet pan and broil until the skin is charred and peeling, about 6 minutes. Flip and char the other sides until the tomatoes are soft and begin to release some of their moisture, about 5 minutes. If using cherry tomatoes, blister without turning until the tomatoes char, collapse and release their moisture, about 10 minutes.

2. When the whole tomatoes are cool enough to handle, transfer them to a board and coarsely chop. (Skip this step if you used cherry tomatoes.) Transfer the tomatoes with their juices to a medium bowl. Add the shallot, sherry vinegar, red-pepper flakes, if using, and the salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil. Taste and add more vinegar and salt if necessary.

3. Use immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Serve as a dressing over cooked leafy greens, green salads, grain salads, roasted or grilled vegetables, meat and fish.

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Night after night, children from St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood have spent the past week exploring the vertical tower, swings, sensory panels and other key aspects of PK’s Place — a privately operated, publicly accessible playground, which may be the most elaborate playground in the city.

Constructed along Pascal Street immediately adjacent to the Allianz Field soccer stadium’s eastern wall, the all-abilities playground features 25 structures, many of which are designed with accessibility for the disabled in mind. Gently sloping ramps within the vertical tower are wide enough to allow a wheelchair user access nearly to the top, and a separate wheelchair-accessible swing is one of the first structures kids encounter toward the playground’s entrance.

PK’s Place — named for Penalty Kick, Minnesota United’s loon mascot — was donated as a gift from the William W. and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation, which also funded the creation of Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis.

St. Paul’s newest playground, PK’s Place, sits next to Allianz Field on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Officially a private park, the playground will be managed much like a public parkland, but overseen by the development team led by Bill McGuire, owner of Minnesota United. For the city, that’s potentially a cost savings in terms of litter pick-up, security and maintenance alone, as well as amenities such as a future water fountain and lighting.

“The water fountain is not installed yet, and the lights are not installed yet, but it’s fully operational,” said Mike Hahm, the city’s former Parks and Rec director, who is now a consultant to the team and spokesman on development surrounding Allianz Field. “It’s a pretty great example of how partnerships can come together to provide great public spaces. The public didn’t have to pay for it.”

During a presentation to the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday, St. Paul City Council member Anika Bowie asked how the P.O.P.S. — or “privately owned public space” — arrangement will work in terms of private rentals and special events, as well as public hours.

“It is the developer’s responsibility to establish those rules,” Hahm said. “It will be open regular hours. Those spaces are generally not reserved for private uses.”

Hotel, office, restaurant to come

The all-abilities playground, designed by Landscape Structures and Flagship Recreation, is one of the most inclusive in the city. The same designers created playgrounds at the new Assembly Union Park at Highland Bridge and St. Paul-Gillette Children’s Hospital.

It’s also the first major addition to the United Village development — the former home of the Midway Shopping Center — since the 19,000-seat stadium opened in April 2019, and city officials and neighborhood residents hope it’s a sign of positive things to come.

The 34-acre Snelling-Midway “super block” was identified in 2015 as the preferred location for the Major League Soccer stadium, with residents and city officials soon shown concept plans for housing, hotel rooms, offices and possibly a movie theater. None have been built yet.

Sill, McGuire and his development team say a hotel, office building and at least one of two restaurant pavilions could be well under construction along University Avenue by this time next year. City staff have offered conditional site plan approval for all three projects, though specific restaurant partners or office tenants have yet to be announced, and the team has yet to confirm whether it will move its offices from Golden Valley to the site.

Up first is the installation in late July of a giant loon sculpture, some 35 feet high, with a wing span 90 feet across. The loon will anchor a sculpture garden at the southeast corner of University and Snelling avenues.

While the $250 million professional soccer stadium has been a major draw for fans and has hosted some international events, it’s been slower to host musical acts and community programming. Most of the funding for the publicly-owned stadium has been private, but a term sheet approved in December for future development around the site includes up to $17 million in tax increment financing, or TIF, a type of city-driven tax incentive where property tax revenue generated on site can also be used on site.

Some of those TIF dollars will be used to boost housing efforts nearby.

“Whatever gets built on this site generates TIF increment for affordable housing along University Avenue,” explained Council President Mitra Jalali.

Also rolled into development plans is a special assessment agreement, which has yet to be finalized. A public hearing on the special assessments, which will be used to fund on-site improvements, will be held this summer.

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