San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
MLB should look to Rickwood Field
Rickwood Field was the ballpark of Willie Mays’ dreams. Start with Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth among those who played there, continue on with Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, then turn to Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. If Major League Baseball wants to perpetuate its fascination with the game’s romantic ideal — so beautifully unveiled with the Field of Dreams game two weeks ago — it should seriously consider Alabama as its next stop.
Nestled in the heart of Birmingham, Rickwood Field is America’s oldest professional ballpark. Wrigley, Fenway, already gone classics like Tiger Stadium or Comiskey Park, the rickety haunts of the Roaring Twenties, whatever you may suggest — Rickwood tops them all, built in 1910 and hosting ballgames to this day.
You’ve probably never heard of the place, but Mays knew it well, almost from birth. His dad was a well-respected ballplayer from Westfield, just a few miles away, and on the good days, the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League played home games at Rickwood. Just 17, still attending Fairfield Industrial High School, Willie started hanging around that team in the spring of 1948, establishing a presence that within months found him a spot in the lineup. And when he was interviewed by The Chronicle’s John Shea for the best-selling book “24,” a wistful Mays recalled “the sound of the train passing by.”
Doesn’t this location strike you as the perfect sequel to Dyersville, that little town in Iowa where the Field of Dreams players walked out of a cornfield? Old-time baseball, this time with heavy emphasis on the Negro Leagues?
“We are delighted by the overwhelming fan response to our event in Iowa,” read an MLB statement in reply to a Chronicle inquiry. “And we hope to highlight other special locations with rich baseball traditions in the future.”
For the moment, MLB is focused on a cornfields encore for 2022. It’s set for Cubs vs. Reds on a Thursday, Aug. 11, and the pairing certainly makes sense. Those are two of the game’s oldest teams, with roots stretching deep into the 19th century, and this would be the opener of a three-game set, followed by a Friday off-day and then two games over the weekend in Cincinnati.
At the same time, it’s a pretty big gamble. Can you imagine
a future game could measure up to what we saw in Dyersville, whether in terms of novelty, anticipation or performance? The Cubs could be a decidedly weak entry, having recently dispatched most of their best players elsewhere. It could be 8-1 in the bottom of the fourth with a rain delay in progress — something even cornstalk power can’t fix — and the whole grand concept takes a hit.
In any case, there are stilldeveloping plans to expand on Iowa’s runaway success. But the more MLB looks into Rickwood Field as an option, the more intriguing it will become.
As construction began in 1909, the park’s builders sought the advice of majorleague owners Connie Mack (Philadelphia Athletics) and Barney Dreyfuss (Pittsburgh Pirates), and their contributions led to a ballpark with distinct shades of Shibe Park and spacious Forbes Field. From 1910 through 1987, this would be the home of the Birmingham Barons, who moved on to more modern facilities but still exist as the Double-A franchise of the Chicago White Sox. A number of teams used Rickwood as a spring-training site in those earliest days, explaining how the likes of Cobb, Ruth, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner graced the ballpark.
Not surprisingly, in a climate of oppressive racial tension in the Deep South, the Barons were an all-white team in the days of Mays’ youth. In a town Martin Luther King Jr. once described as “probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States,” the Black Barons got to use Rickwood when their counterparts were out of town, most often on Sundays, when immaculately dressed fans headed straight to the ballpark from church.
There wasn’t a whole lot of romance to the park’s attendance policy. If Black fans wanted to attend a Barons game, their fans were limited to seating in a restricted area of the right-field bleachers — and it worked in reverse for white fans if the Black Barons were playing. “It was a different time,” Mays told Shea. “We were playing for ourselves but also for people in the community who’d come watch a game and get their minds away from any hardships.”
At least a measure of coexistence was in place. In his book “Willie’s Boys,” author John Klima noted that as the national anthem played, “the Black Barons stood at attention, caught, like the rest of Black America, in a strange paradox of honoring the country that restricted them. That was why these games had such communal meaning. Baseball was freedom. Between the lines, on the field, it was limitless.”
Klima wrote, “Game days in front of Rickwood Field were one of the few times and places in Birmingham where the segregation ordinance wasn’t rigidly enforced. Black customers stood in line next to white customers to buy tickets.”
At 17, Mays was mostly known around town as an otherworldly high school talent in basketball and football. They knew he could run, and when he pitched, he had the strongest arm anyone had ever seen. But the Black Barons, run by the legendary manager/ second baseman Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, were a team of exceptionally talented veterans, many of them denied a shot at the major leagues only due to the color of their skin. Mays had to earn his way into the club’s center-field job, but once he did, he was a central figure in the team’s drive to the 1948 Negro League World Series, knocking off the fabled Kansas City Monarchs in the playoffs before losing the championship to the Homestead Grays.
Meanwhile, thanks to spring training, exhibition games and barnstorming tours, great players were a constant presence at Rickwood Field. Picture this: In the spring of 1948, aside from Mays preparing to be an all-time great, Ted Williams came to town with the Boston Red Sox and Joe DiMaggio showed up with the Yankees. “Just lately we’ve been cataloging the number of Hall of Famers who have played at Rickwood,” said local author/historian Clarence Watkins in a phone conversation. “So far we’re in the 1930s.”
Watkins, 71, served many years as executive director of Friends of Rickwood, a Birmingham group intent on preserving the park’s historic value. “We’ve always had a capacity of around 12,000 and that’s not going to change,” he said. “We’re constantly updating the place — as you can imagine with a park that’s 111 years old — but never in a way that changes its traditional look.”
In recent years, the park has been used by Miles College, a number of high school teams and groups interested in staging old-style ballgames, plus the annual Rickwood Classic, a minor-league event held each fall. In 2006, a crew from ESPN staged a game between players from its home base (Bristol, Conn.) against a team of Black stars from the high school level, with Mays the guest of honor. Jim Bouton, the former Yankees pitcher (and author of the book “Ball Four”) who managed one of the teams, told the Birmingham News, “The preservationists were right. This place is like a church. You wouldn’t tear down St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
So here’s a thought for making this a Field of Dreams for everyone: Play a Rickwood doubleheader, the big-league affair preceded by a showcase of young Black amateur talent from around the country. Make sure a substantial number of current and former Black stars are in attendance, letting young kids know that this is a great game and a tremendously rewarding sport to play.
“That’s all we’ve talked about down here, having any kind of game with the big leagues in charge,” said Watkins. “We would love that.”
They wouldn’t be alone.