Former Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. has signed on to host a documentary podcast distributed by the NPR Network about the intersection of baseball and civil rights.
Wood will host Road to Rickwood, a new podcast produced by NPR Member stations WWNO and WRKF, with support from Major League Baseball. The show will cover how a baseball field in Birmingham, Alabama—Rickwood Field, the oldest ballpark in the country—played many parts in the city’s history as an epicenter of fights for freedom and equality.
Wood, who was raised in Birmingham, will “explore the ballpark’s deep ties to the Negro Leagues, Civil Rights Movement and women’s suffrage,” according to NPR.
“In the last 114 years, this venue has had a front-row seat to Alabama’s struggle for freedom,” Wood says in a trailer for the podcast. “From a women’s suffrage rally to a Klan rally; from segregated baseball to the first integrated sports team in Alabama.”
The podcast comes in advance of an upcoming MLB game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals at Rickwood Field. The event, MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues, will be played on June 20, a day after Juneteenth.
Wood previously hosted The Daily Show’s podcast Beyond the Scenes.
Wood departed The Daily Show last October, after serving as a correspondent since 2015—but he’s kept busy since then. In February Variety reported he’d sold a memoir, “The Man of Many Fathers.” In April, he joined the cast of Jonah Hill’s new movie Outcome. He’s also working on two scripts, and still performs standup most weekends.
The four-part podcast series Road to Rickwood launches May 28.
