Stadium Minor League History:
Southern Association
1910-1961
Southern League
1964-1965, 1967-1975, 1981-1987
Stadium Negro League History:
Negro National League
1923-1925, 1927-1931
Negro Southern League 1932
Negro American League 1937-1938,
1940-1950
Current Status:
Used for community, high school, and amateur
ball, and the annual "Rickwood Classic" Barons game
What's Good:
Rickwood Field is the closest thing the baseball world has to a time machine.
Once just another aging minor league park, Rickwood was left for dead after
the Birmingham Barons moved to their new suburban stadium in 1988.
Fortunately, some concerned locals realized what they had on their hands,
and organized to form the Friends of Rickwood, a non-profit group dedicated
to preserving what is now the oldest ballpark in America. They are
restoring the field to the way it might have looked in the 1940s, complete
with a hand-operated scoreboard, rooftop pressbox, and authentic colors
of paint. To increase awareness of the ballpark's historic status
as well as to raise money for the ongoing preservation efforts, the FOR
have leased out the park for use in movies (including "Cobb" and an HBO
movie about the Negro Leagues), and the outfield fences are still covered
with replicas of ads from the early years of the century, leftovers from
the filming of "Cobb" (for a view of the fences from behind home plate,
click here).
Starting in
1996, the FOR and the Barons teamed up to stage what has become the annual
"Rickwood Classic" game at the old ballpark. The Barons and their
opponents play a day game, wearing replica uniforms of an earlier era --
it's like the "turn back the clock" promotions that many teams do, but
in an authentically old stadium. I attended the first three such
games (in 1996, 1997, and 1998), and enjoyed them immensely, although the
magical atmosphere of the first one has disappeared as the game has progressed
from hopeful experiment to slick, corporately-sponsored event. Nevertheless,
it's a wonderful thing to keep pro ball at Rickwood, even if for that one
day a year.
The grandstand
is not very tall, but stretches from past third, around home, and all the
way down the first base line before hooking around the foul pole.
A full roof, supported by a wonderfully complex assortment of geometrically
arranged girders, beams, and braces covers the entire seating area, with
enormous and rickety-looking light towers mounted on top and cantilevered
out over the field (the lights are easily visible in the photo above, but
for another view click here). With the
teams wearing "old" uniforms and the field looking like it does these days,
it's not hard during these games to imagine that you've stepped back in
time 50 years or so. In a day when any new ballpark with green structural
steel is lauded for being "just like the old-time ballparks," Rickwood
Field is the real thing. For more information about the Friends of
Rickwood, call (205) 458-8161 or click
here.
What's Not So Good: Nothing. In fact it's great that they play even the one Southern League game here every year.
This Photo:
June 12, 1997 Birmingham Barons vs. Chattanooga Lookouts
