MLB Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson remembers Willie Mays at historic Rickwood Field: 'He was pure baseball'

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MLB Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson sat on the Fox Sports panel at the historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday night in mourning, much like the rest of the baseball world is after the death of Willie Mays. 

Mays died peacefully on Tuesday afternoon at 93 years old, two days before this long-awaited game between the St. Louis Cardinals and his San Francisco Giants was to be played at the Negro Leagues field he competed at with the Birmingham Black Barons when he was just a kid looking to break into professional baseball. 

Fellow Hall of Famer Derek Jeter shared a text exchange that he had with Jackson to kick off the remembrance of Mays, who Jackson said was his "all-time favorite."

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Reggie Jackson stands on the field before the Oakland Athletics game against the New York Yankees at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images)

"’He was at the very least one of the greatest of all-time,’" Jeter said Jackson texted him. "’We all wanted to be like Willie. When one played against him, you got caught up in watching Willie. He was pure baseball. My all-time favorite, love the guy. I wanted to be like Willie.’"

Jackson went further into his admiration for Mays, who he got to know well as a young ballplayer in MLB. 

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"'You could see that the love of the game was in Willie Mays, Derek," Jackson said. "'The way he went about it when you saw him in spring training, I