Rickwood Field

From BR Bullpen

041436pv rickwood field.jpg

Former home of Birmingham Barons and Birmingham Black Barons

BUILT: 1910

CAPACITY: 9,312

History[edit]

Rickwood Field was the home of affiliated baseball in Birmingham, AL, from 1910 through 1987, and Negro Leagues baseball from no later than 1920 into the 1960s. In 1988, the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League began playing in a new ballpark in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover.

Two of its most famous alumni played for the Birmingham Black Barons: A 17-year-old Willie Mays played his first games under contract there in 1948, 21 seasons after the Black Barons became the second stop on the career ladder of legendary pitcher Satchel Paige.

Now part museum, Rickwood Field has hosted and hopefully will soon again host one Barons' regular-season game each year: the Rickwood Classic. The series, which began in 1996, was played in every year but one through 2019: the 2017, canceled because of structural problems that have since been corrected. However, since 2019 events have conspired to prevent it. The 2020 game - the first scheduled for a Monday rather than a Wednesday - would have commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues but was lost to the Coronavirus pandemic with the rest of the 2020 Minor League Baseball season. Although there was a 2021 campaign, the Classic was again canceled with attendance restrictions being the announced reason.

In hindsight, there may have been another behind the scenes. After MLB vastly increased its operational control of the minors with its 2021 Minor League Reorganization, it began - without publicity - wielding approval on such events. Venues did not necessarily have to meet the reorganization's new ballpark standards, but MLB reportedly approved or denied on a case-by-case basis that likely was largely about the venue. The 2022 Classic was, at least publicly, up in the air into the season but was ultimately not played. No 2023 game was announced, but media coverage of a $2 million grant to improve the aging facility appears to make clear that MLB will not approve a Classic there as Rickwood currently stands.[1] The grant came too late enable a 2023 game, as work would not start before late summer, but its approval made it possible for a much bigger contest to be staged here: In June 2023, news emerged that Major League Baseball had decided to stage a "destination" game, éa la the "Field of Dreams Game", at Rickwood. Two games had been played under that billing in a ballpark erected in the Iowa corn field where the classic movie was shot, but while media quickly called the Rickwood event a continuance in another location, MLB's announcement did not.[2] The June 20, 2024, game, dubbed "MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues" will feature the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, playing respectively as the San Francisco Sea Lions and St. Louis Stars of the Negro Leagues.

MLB made the announcement one year to the day in advance, promoting it as honoring Mays - whom it cites as the "greatest living player" of both the Negro Leagues and the Majors.[3]

The announcement also said, without calling it a revival of the Rickwood Classic, that the Birmingham Barons and Montgomery Biscuits will play a regular-season game on June 18th. Those two dates bracket the 2024 celebration of the newest American holiday, Juneteenth, and the release says the games are scheduled "around" that holiday.

The Rickwood Classic baseball game was played once a year 1996-2016 and 2018-2019 at Rickwood Ballpark located in Birmingham, AL. It is currently suspended per MLB but is likely to resume following the renovations. (2010 photo, making this from its centennial season)

In February 1910, industrialist A.H. "Rick" Woodward bought controlling interest of the Birmingham Coal Barons, broke ground that April, and christened his ballpark on August 18th. He modeled it largely on Philadelphia's Shibe Park and Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. Often credited as the first concrete-and-steel ballpark in the minors, it was actually the second - Swayne Field in Toledo, OH, was of such construction and opened more than 13 months earlier - July 3rd, 1909. Like some of its other longevity titles, though, Rickwood is the first concrete-and-steel stadium opened for minor league baseball that still stands today.

The 1920 formation of the Negro Southern League included a team called the "Birmingham Stars". However, when Woodward drew up a plan to share Rickwood with the Stars, they moved in and changed their name to Birmingham Black Barons.

Simultaneously the oldest existing stadium that ever hosted a team in both Organized Baseball and the Negro Leagues, Rickwood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. (McCormick Field in Asheville, NC hosted Negro League action as late as 1949, but it was completely rebuilt in 1992.) Rickwood attained oldest-in-the-game status when Nashville's Sulphur Dell was demolished in 1969 and oldest-in-the-Negro-Leagues when old Yankee Stadium met the wrecking ball in 2010.

Rickwood appears in the films Cobb (1994), Soul of the Game (1996) and 42 (2013). In 42, it portrayed its partial model Forbes Field and also itself.

The venerable ballpark mostly hosts college and high school games, and amateur tournaments - all while providing a glimpse into baseball's rich past.

Rickwood Classics[edit]

Date of Game Score Attendance
June 12, 1996 Birmingham Barons 3, Memphis Chicks 2 10,324
June 10, 1997 Birmingham Barons 12, Chattanooga Lookouts 6 8,135
June 4, 1998 Greenville Braves 12, Birmingham Barons 8 6,873
May 16, 1999 Birmingham Barons 5, Huntsville Stars 4 7,204
June 11, 2000 Mobile BayBears 12, Birmingham Barons 5 6,641
June 7, 2001 West Tenn DiamondJaxx 12, Birmingham Barons 3 6,856
April 25, 2002 Birmingham Barons 14, Chattanooga Lookouts 4 4,804
June 11, 2003 Birmingham Barons 5, Huntsville Stars 1 (8 inns, rain) 5,355
June 17, 2004 Huntsville Stars 8, Birmingham Barons 6 7,165
July 27, 2005 (ppd from June 2) Montgomery Biscuits 6, Birmingham Barons 5 4,633
June 22, 2006 Birmingham Barons 3, Tennessee Smokies 2 4,704
May 30, 2007 Birmingham Barons 3, Jacksonville Suns 2 5,802
May 28, 2008 Jacksonville Suns 4, Birmingham Barons 2 7,515
May 27, 2009 Mississippi Braves 3, Birmingham Barons 2 7,396
June 2, 2010 Tennessee Smokies 8, Birmingham Barons 7 (11 inns) 9,448
June 1, 2011 Birmingham Barons 4, Chattanooga Lookouts 3 6,871
May 31, 2012 Chattanooga Lookouts 7, Birmingham Barons 6 7,180
May 29, 2013 Birmingham Barons 6, Tennessee Smokies 3 7,268
June 25, 2014 Mississippi Braves 5, Birmingham Barons 2 8,655
May 27, 2015 Jacksonville Suns 8, Birmingham Barons 2 7,046
June 1, 2016 Chattanooga Lookouts 7, Birmingham Barons 4 7,192
May 31, 2017 No Classic as such, due to emergency repairs to Rickwood Field;
that day's game at Regions Field was played as "Turn Back the Clock game"
May 20, 2018 Birmingham Barons 7, Chattanooga Lookouts 1 6,028
May 31, 2019 Montgomery Biscuits 9, Birmingham Barons 4 7,015
June 8, 2020 Canceled w/entire 2020 Minors season; COVID-19
2021 Canceled; COVID-19
2022 Canceled per MLB
2023 Canceled per MLB
June 18, 2024 Montgomery Biscuits 6, Birmingham Barons 5 7,866

Further reading[edit]

  • Allen Barra: Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, NY, 2010.
  • Art Black: Showdown at Rickwood: Ray Caldwell, Dizzy Dean, and the Early Years of America's Oldest Ball Park, Blue Rooster Press, Birmingham, AL, 2017. ISBN 978-0988980730
  • Derrian Carter: "America's oldest ballpark to get new look for MLB matchup in 2024: Cardinals, Giants pay tribute to Negro Leagues history with game at Rickwood Field", mlb.com, August 3, 2023. [4]
  • Anthony Castrovince: "How Hollywood saved Rickwood Field", mlb.com, June June 12, 2024. [5]
  • Michael Clair: "When Rickwood Field opened, the owner threw the first pitch -- and it counted", mlb.com, June 20, 2024. [6]
  • Gary Gillette: "Rickwood Field", in "Still Standing: Where to See Extant Negro League Ballparks", in Sean Forman and Cecilia M. Tan, eds.: The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition, Baseball-Reference and SABR, Phoenix, AZ, 2021, p. 76. ISBN ISBN 978-1-970159-63-9
  • Manny Randhawa: "A palace for baseball royalty: A look at the legends who played at Rickwood", mlb.com, June 16, 2024. [7]

Related Sites[edit]

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