It’s older than each Wrigley Discipline and Fenway Park – certainly it’s the oldest venue for skilled baseball in the USA. It’s considered one of two remaining Negro League parks. It has – in a testomony to its historic breadth – hosted inside its partitions 181 of the 351 complete Corridor of Famers, whether or not gamers, managers or operators of groups. On the enjoying facet, the record consists of true pantheon dwellers of the game: Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Cool Papa Bell, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Rogers Hornsby, Reggie Jackson, Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, Dizzy Dean, Rollie Fingers. 

Of those, Mays, maybe the best baseball participant within the annals of baseball gamers, is the Corridor of Famer most linked with Rickwood Discipline. Mays, who died Tuesday, was a local of the Birmingham, Ala., space, and so he was on his hometown subject when he suited up for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948. It was Mays’ first season as knowledgeable and the beginning of a profession that may tower over that of just about another participant. It is becoming, then, that when Mays’ former crew, the Giants, takes the sphere in opposition to the Cardinals on Thursday in Birmingham, it will be a celebration not solely of Mays but in addition of the setting – the dwelling museum that’s Rickwood Discipline. 

Main League Baseball’s foray into Rickwood additionally marks the most recent initiative to embrace – or co-opt, if you happen to discover that time period extra correct – the historical past of the bygone Negro Leagues. For MLB, it is a sophisticated needle to string, which, frankly, it needs to be. Solely due to organized baseball’s racist and segregationist insurance policies did the Negro Leagues ever exist, simply as solely due to these insurance policies was Jackie Robinson tasked with shattering them. Nevertheless, ignoring the Negro Leagues, even when carried out so out of a way of institutional modesty or chagrin over MLB’s foundational ethical failings, most likely wasn’t tenable. 

The primary main step of current years got here in December 2020, when MLB, formally and from on excessive, acknowledged the Negro Leagues throughout the 1920-48 interval as being of “main league” standing. The main sensible impact of this elevation is that the greater than 3,000 gamers who appeared within the Negro Leagues throughout that point turned Main Leaguers within the official file. The choice reversed and belatedly corrected that of a 1969 league committee that bestowed major-league standing upon a number of circuits from the early days of organized baseball however not the Negro Leagues.

The following and most up-to-date sea change got here earlier this 12 months, when the league included Negro League statistics into MLB’s official stats. This in fact carried with it many implications, lots of that are sweeping in nature. For distinguished occasion, the luminous Josh Gibson is now the all-time chief in plenty of batting classes. Extra to the purpose of this endeavor, Mays picked up 10 hits because of his efforts for the ’48 Black Barons. 

This brings us again to Thursday’s celebration of Mays, Rickwood Discipline, and the Negro Leagues. Whereas Mays’ loss of life now places a somber shadow over the occasion, it nonetheless guarantees to be a compelling and essential night of baseball between the contending Giants and Cardinals. Regardless of how the sport on the sphere performs out and who authors the result, the star shall be Birmingham’s Rickwood Discipline, which is able to finally obtain a wide-scale appreciation of its historical past, magnificence, and significance. 

So as to add to that appreciation, we have put collectively a historic timeline of Rickwood Discipline. The hope is that what follows hints on the historic sprawl of the ballpark and its mandatory place of honor within the story of baseball. 

February 1910
Quickly after millionaire industrialist A.H. “Rick” Woodward buys controlling curiosity within the Southern Affiliation’s Birmingham Barons, he units about constructing the primary concrete-and-steel ballpark within the minors. Woodward fashions the park after Shibe Park in Philadelphia and Forbes Discipline in Pittsburgh and undertakes the challenge after consulting with Connie Mack of the Athletics, who visits Birmingham. Woodward manufacturers it as “The Best Minor-League Ballpark Ever.” Initially projected to value $25,000, the venue in the long run carries a value of thrice that determine. 

Aug. 18, 1910
Rickwood Discipline, named for Woodward, opens in Birmingham, and metropolis companies shut for the day to mark the event. Rickwood, nestled on a 12.7-acre plot at 2nd Avenue West and twelfth Avenue West, has an official seating capability of 5,000, however a crowd of greater than 10,000 (12,000 by some estimates) seems for the primary recreation, thus setting a Southern League attendance file. Woodward himself fits up, places himself within the lineup and throws out the primary pitch – the primary recreation pitch, not a ceremonial first pitch (it is a ball). He then watches the rest of the sport from the stands. which the Barons win over Montgomery 3-2 in walk-off trend. 

The park incorporates a basketball hoop on a Mellow Yellow sign up right-center. Any participant to hit a ball by means of the ring is promised $500, however nobody ever succeeds. 

Quickly after “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, later to be completely banned for his alleged position within the Black Sox Scandal, performs at Rickwood as a member of the visiting New Orleans Pelicans. 

1911
The College of Alabama and Auburn College soccer groups start to make use of Rickwood as a website for house video games. They’ll achieve this till 1927.

1912
Participant-manager Carlton Molesworth guides the Barons to their first league title since Rickwood Discipline opened. 

1915
Rickwood Discipline hosts a one-inning “Suffrage Day” exhibition during which the gamers are ladies advocating for the best to vote. 

1920
The Birmingham Stars of the Negro Southern League turn into a tenant at Rickwood Discipline and are quickly renamed the Birmingham Black Barons. For the following 40 years, the Black Barons and the Barons will share Rickwood Discipline, though, in step with the racial obstacles of the instances, by no means play in opposition to one another. 

April 16, 1921
An early morning twister strikes Rickwood Discipline and causes $30,000 in harm.

1923
The Black Barons are promoted to the major-league Negro Nationwide League, first as an affiliate franchise after which by 1925 as a full member of Rube Foster’s circuit. Mule Suttles, a 23-year-old left fielder and first baseman, emerges as their first star after becoming a member of the NNL. 

Rickwood proves to be an alluring venue for the various barnstorming groups across the nation. Early large names to go to Rickwood as barnstormers embrace Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.

Mid- to late-Twenties
As half of a bigger complement of renovations, the metal infield grandstand at Rickwood is prolonged to supply extra shade to followers within the right-field bleachers. 

1927
The 20-year-old rookie right-hander Satchel Paige helps the Black Barons to the postseason. 

1929
Touring with the Yankees, Babe Ruth makes an look at Rickwood. 

1928
A facade styled like a conventional Spanish mission is constructed on the entrance to the park. As effectively, a brand new scoreboard in left subject is added. The scoreboard will later be relocated to proper subject. 

1930
Paige leaves the Black Barons to hitch the Cleveland Cubs. 

1931
Introduced low by the Nice Despair, the Black Barons drop again to the Negro Southern League. 

Autumn 1931
Extensively considered the best recreation ever performed at Rickwood Discipline, 20-year-old Dizzy Dean and the Houston Buffaloes fall 1-0 to 43-year-old Ray Caldwell and the Barons within the Dixie Collection. An overstuffed crowd of greater than 20,000 witnesses the traditional. 

1936
Evening baseball involves Rickwood after 4 75-foot, steel-frame mild towers are constructed across the subject. For 4 seasons round this time, Bull Connor serves because the Baron’s play-by-play broadcaster. Connor will later earn infamy as Birmingham’s segregationist commissioner of public security and sworn enemy of the Civil Rights motion. 

1937
The Black Barons return to the best stage of Black baseball as members of the Negro American League. 

Feb. 7, 1939
Woodward sells the Barons to native businessman Ed Norton for $175,000. 

1940
Rickwood Discipline’s seating capability is expanded to fifteen,000. 

1942
School soccer returns to Rickwood Discipline with the Vulcan Bowl, the Negro School Soccer Championship.

1943
The Black Barons advance to their first Negro League World Collection however fall in six video games to the Homestead Grays.

1944
The Black Barons are once more Negro American League champions however once more they fall to the Homestead Grays within the Negro League World Collection. 

April 15, 1947
Jackie Robinson breaks Main League Baseball’s colour barrier when he debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This watershed second and the following drift of Black baseball expertise to organized baseball will result in a reasonably sudden undermining of the Negro Leagues’ viability as a enterprise.

1948
The Black Barons signal 17-year-old outfielder Willie Mays. As a result of Mays was nonetheless in highschool, he initially performs solely in weekend house video games at Rickwood in order that he can proceed attending faculty in close by Fairfield. In his first recreation as knowledgeable, Mays tallies a pair of hits off Chet Brewer. The expansive Rickwood outfield supplies Mays with ample alternative to show his glorious vary and instincts in middle subject. 

Mays’ Black Barons teammate, shortstop Artie Wilson, bats .433 for the season, because the crew below player-manager Piper Davis wins the Negro American League title. Nevertheless, they succumb but once more to the legendary Homestead Grays within the Negro League World Collection. The clinching Sport 5 at Rickwood stands because the final Negro League World Collection recreation ever performed. 

This 12 months additionally events Rickwood Discipline’s all-time seasonal attendance file, as 445,926 followers descend upon the park’s six ticket home windows and go by means of the turnstiles. 

This identical 12 months, Walt Dropo hits one of many longest house runs in Rickwood historical past. Estimated at 467 toes, Dropo’s blast goes over the picket scoreboard. 

1950
Crimson Sox legend Ted Williams homers twice in his first Rickwood Discipline look. 

At one level throughout the 1950 season, Barons first baseman Norm Zauchin pursues a foul ball into the seats, and he falls into the lap of a girl seated on the primary row. Introduction made, Zauchin and the lady shall be married two years later. 

The Dugout Restaurant is added to the Rickwood grounds. Occasional repute could have it that the Dugout is simply place you should buy beer on Sundays in Birmingham. 

June 1950
The New York Giants signal Mays. 

1954
Toni Stone, the primary lady to play professionally on a predominantly male crew, performs at Rickwood for the primary time. 

Stan Musial enjoying at Rickwood hits a towering homer over the scoreboard in proper subject. 

Charley Pleasure, later to turn into a famed recording artist and pioneering member of the Nation Music Corridor of Fame, pitches the 1954 season for the Black Barons. 

Early Sixties
The Black Barons, in essence diminished to a barnstorming existence by this stage of post-integration baseball, start to wind down operations. Whereas permitting that “particulars are sketchy,” the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham pegs 1962 because the Black Barons’ ultimate season. 

Late 1961
The unique Barons stop operations below proprietor Albert Belcher following the 1961 season, thus leaving Rickwood with out an affiliated crew. The racist Jim Crow legal guidelines of the South are in charge, because the transfer comes after Main League Baseball in November proclaims a mandate that every one affiliated minor-league groups should combine by 1962. Nevertheless, a Birmingham ordinance forbids it. Part 597 reads partially, “It shall be illegal for a Negro and a white individual to play collectively or in firm with one another in any recreation of playing cards, cube, dominoes, baseball, softball, soccer, basketball or comparable video games.” 

1964
Belcher persuades Kansas Metropolis A’s proprietor Charlie Finley, who hails from the realm, to find his membership’s Double-A affiliate in Birmingham at Rickwood Discipline. That 12 months, the revived Barons subject the town’s first built-in baseball crew. Belcher additionally takes down the chicken-wire barrier within the stands that had beforehand separated Black followers from white followers. 

One thousand seats from the soon-to-be-razed Polo Grounds in New York are bought and put in in Rickwood Discipline. They’ll stay in use till 1980. 

Mid-Sixties
Not lengthy after the Braves’ relocation from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966, Hank Aaron and his Braves teammates start enjoying common exhibitions in opposition to Southern League All-Stars at Rickwood. This lasts till the mid-Nineteen Seventies, when Aaron is traded to the Brewers and later retires from baseball because the all-time Residence Run King. 

1967
Finley renames the Barons because the Birmingham A’s.

April 22, 1967
Reggie Jackson’s most memorable Rickwood house run, a walk-off grand slam, soars over the fence in right-center that is 390 toes from the plate. Many in attendance will attest that Jackson’s homer remains to be rising because it leaves the park. 

1975
Finley strikes the A’s Double-A affiliate from Birmingham to Chattanooga. 

1978
Rickwood turns into the house subject of the College of Alabama-Birmingham baseball crew. 

1981 
Southern League baseball returns when the Montgomery Rebels, affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, transfer to Rickwood and turn into the most recent model of the Birmingham Barons. Following the 1987 season, the Barons, by then below the aegis of the White Sox, transfer to the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. 

1985
The Rickwood Discipline outfield dimensions bear drastic adjustments. The left-field fence is introduced in from 405 toes to 325 toes. The gap to middle subject is diminished from 470 toes to 393 toes. Proper subject is modestly adjusted from 334 to 332 toes. As effectively, the seating capability is diminished to 10,400.

Sept. 9, 1987
The Barons fall to Charlotte within the second recreation of the Southern League title sequence. The loss ends the Barons’ time as Rickwood’s common tenant. 

Late Eighties
The Metropolis of Birmingham takes possession of Rickwood Discipline. Baseball video games between metropolis excessive faculties start to be performed at Rickwood. 

1991
The demolition of Comiskey Park in Chicago makes Rickwood Discipline the oldest ballpark within the U.S. 

1992
After the venue steadily falls into disrepair, a bunch of locals varieties the Associates of Rickwood group and makes their mission the restoration of the sphere. The trouble is helped drastically by the filming of the Tommy Lee Jones movie “Cobb,” the baseball scenes of which had been shot at Rickwood. The movie crew’s refurbishments of Rickwood go a great distance towards conducting the targets of the Associates of Rickwood. One of many greatest early initiatives is reinstalling the traditional drop-in-scoreboard. 

Within the coming years, an growing roster of high-school, junior-college, school, and police-league groups will play in Rickwood frequently. 

Feb. 1, 1993
Rickwood Discipline is added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. 

1996
The Barons return for the inaugural Rickwood Basic in opposition to the Memphis Chicks. The annual minor-league recreation at Rickwood options classic uniforms and the feting of former Barons gamers. 

The tv film “Soul of the Sport” makes use of Rickwood Discipline in a number of scenes.

Aug. 18, 2010
Rickwood Discipline celebrates the a centesimal anniversary of its opening. It turns into the primary U.S. ballpark to achieve that milestone. 

2013
“42,” a Jackie Robinson biopic and Chadwick Boseman car, options Rickwood Discipline in a number of scenes. 

2018-19
Vintage road lights are added exterior the park alongside twelfth Avenue to recreate the texture of the park’s Nineteen Forties glory days. 

June 20, 2023
MLB proclaims that on June 20, 2024 the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants will play a regular-season recreation at Rickwood Discipline. The occasion is scheduled round Juneteenth, which yearly commemorates the top of slavery in the USA. As effectively, festivities “will embrace a wide range of actions as a tribute to the Negro Leagues” and Mays himself, in accordance with MLB.

“I can not consider it,” Mays says in a press release on the time. “I by no means thought I might see in my lifetime a Main League Baseball recreation being performed on the very subject the place I performed baseball as a youngster. It has been 75 years since I performed for the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Discipline, and to be taught that my Giants and the Cardinals will play a recreation there and honor the legacy of the Negro Leagues and all those that got here earlier than them is actually emotional for me. We won’t overlook what bought us right here and that was the Negro Leagues for therefore many people.”

It’s to be the primary ever major-league regular-season recreation performed in Mays’ house state of Alabama. 

Sources: AL.com; Baseball-Reference.com; EncyclopediaOfAlabama.org; Inexperienced Cathedrals by Philip J. Lowry; MiLB.com; MLB.com; Nationwide Register of Historic Locations, Database and Analysis; the Negro Southern League Museum; “Rickwood Discipline Options Baseball’s Previous and Current,” by Bruce Markusen, BaseballHall.org; Rickwood.com; SABR.org; “Take Me Out to the Ball Park: The Restoration and Revitalization of Rickwood Discipline,” by David M. Brewer, Historic Preservation Schooling Basis; wvtm13.com