Rickwood Field
- David Hegler
- Jul 11
- 8 min read
Rickwood Field is so much more than just America's oldest professional ballpark. As the first minor league stadium fortified by concrete and steel, it served as the perfect backdrop for both the Southern League's Barons and the Negro League's Black Barons who featured one of the greatest players of his generation: Willie Mays.
The Muse
Rick Woodward had always been intrigued with the national pastime. In 1909, he managed his father's company team, the Woodward Iron, leading them all the way to the pennant when disaster struck. Just before the last game of the season, his men gave him an ultimatum: pay them or they intentionally lose. He didn't blink and the Iron lost the league title.
But young Woodward had caught the bug that was sweeping the nation. He yearned for a life in the game and abruptly bought the Birmingham Barons just before the 1910 season. He was always thinking ahead and had been planning on building his own ballpark even before he purchased the Barons.
Woodward spent the offseason looking at the few concrete ballparks that were beginning to dot the landscape such and drew particular inspiration from Philadelphia's Shibe Park, whose tenant and eventual owner, Connie Mack, quickly grew enamored with the young manager and offered his help, even traveling to Birmingham to lend a hand in the construction.
Although initial estimates ran in the neighborhood of a mere $25,000, Birmingham, Alabama's newest ballpark came closer to $75,000 when it was all said and done. Little did anyone realize how big of a role the little 5,000-seat baseball park would play in American history.
Opening Day
With the city's workers and many of its retail employees being given the day off for the occasion, a new southern League record of more than 10,000 packed the stands at Birmingham's new baseball park on August 18, 1910 and left with their hearts full and eyes gazing at the future as the Barons defeated the Montgomery Climbers.
Rick Woodward's father was impressed as he watched the scene unfold around him, with all of the town's leaders such as mayor Jimmy Jones attending the event and proudly paid off all outstanding debt on the new structure, gifting his son the opportunity to make his new ballclub and ballpark a major attraction within the Southern League and beyond.
A fan vote soon named the structure after its owner. It was only fitting since not only did Rick Woodward bring a team to the area and build a ballpark that the town could be proud of, but he also threw the first pitch at Rickwood Field. The best was yet to come.
The Glory Years
For much of their early years, the Birmingham Barons were the darlings of the Southern League, picking up pennants in 1912 and 1914. However, they couldn't keep up the dominance and fell back to mediocrity from 1915 through much of the roaring 1920's. For much of that decade of prosperity, Woodward Iron was booming as the country continued to swell and as a result, Rick Woodward was willing to spend whatever it took to make his team great and his ballpark the envy of the entire country.
He took a step in the right direction when he hired Johnny Dobbs as the Barons' manager in 1926. The following winter, Woodward invested more than $125,000 to revamp Rickwood Field, adding a new scoreboard in left field, covering the bleachers down the right field line and adding a new mission-style front entrance that became the enduring emblem that drew fans from all over.
All along, Rick Woodward stayed busy by dialing the phones, looking for proven major leaguers to solidify his squad. His diligence proved to be successful when the Barons won three more Southern League championships between 1928 to 1931.
Meanwhile, the Negro Leagues were starting to make a name for themselves in the baseball landscape and the Birmingham Black Barons began play at Rickwood Field in 1923. While they would ultimately be well known in that particular ballpark, the Black Barons had five separate stints in Rickwood, playing there from 1923 through 1925, 1927 through 1930, 1932, 1937 through 1938 and again from 1940 through 1960.
Although their time spent there was sporadic, the Black Barons played well, winning five Negro American League titles 1943, 1944, 1948, 1958 and 1959 while appearing in three Negro World Series. Unfortunately, they fell flat on their faces when it mattered most in the Negro World Series.
In 1943, the Black Barons finished third in the NAL behind Piper Davis's team leading two home runs and 24 rbi, Felix McLaurin's .400 OBP and Gready McKinnis's sizzling 3.65 ERA. After beating the Chicago American Giants 3-2 in the NALCS, the Black Barons lost to theHomestead Grays in the Negro World Series.
The following year, the Black Barons were even better, finishing 47-22 and first in the NAL. however, they once again lost to the Grays in the Negro League World Series, 4-1. Four years later, Piper Davis was now their manager as the Black Barons won 63, lost 28 and tied twice on their way to a second place finish in the NAL.
After beating the Kansas City Monarchs 4-3-1 in the NALCS, the Birmingham Black Barons again bounced off the proverbial Gray-colored wall that stood sky high in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well as the nation's capital (the Homestead Grays played their home games at both Forbes Field and Griffith Stadium in that era). the 1948 Negro World Series was the last of its kind, at once a final crowning achievement for the league's premier ballclub and a final body blow to its second fiddle.
But despite the multiple losses in the Negro World Series, this was indeed Rickwood Field's golden era. The Black Barons were clearly the top draw of the town as they routinely boasted a lineup with names such as Lorenzo "Piper" Davis, Lloyd "Pepper" Bassett, Nat Rogers, Ulysses Holliman and the great Willie Mays, perhaps the greatest all-around player.
The Great Depression marked the beginning of the end for Woodward's involvement with his beloved ballpark. With the iron industry being hit hard, Woodward Iron was forced to pay employees in company scrip that could only be redeemed in the company store. In 1938, Rick Woodward sold both the Barons and Rickwood Field to Ed Norton who then sold the team to the Cincinnati Reds two years later.
Now as an official member of the Reds farm system, the Barons routinely employed some. of the very best baseball players in the minor leagues. With a fresh crop of stellar players, the Reds knew that Rickwood Field would draw quit a crowd in no time. In anticipation of such a bump in attendance, the Reds installed a wooden outfield wall that stood within the old concrete one to encourage more home runs and more buns in the seats. In 1943, the Barons added a Hall of Fame to their home. After an inaugural class of 40, they began a long tradition of adding two new members each year, their names and likenesses decorating the walls of Rickwood Field.
In 1946, the Reds sold both the ballpark and the team to Birmingham restauranteur Gus Jebeles, a lifelong fan who dreamed of bringing Rickwood Field back to its glory days. He installed ceiling fans throughout Rickwood Field, making it the first ballpark to have such an appliance. He also led the movement to add advertising to the outfield walls.
The summer of 1948 was the most lucrative summer in Rickwood Field's illustrious history. The service men were back from war with money in their pockets. Rickwood Field immediately took advantage of the opportunity and although they finished third in the Southern League, they managed to set a an attendance record with 445,926 attendees. They nearly did as well the following year by drawing 421,305 but fell back to earth in 1950.
In 1961, mayor Jimmy Jones planned to enforce a city law that forbade whites and blacks from playing with each other. seeing impending doom in the box office, the Barons disbanded.
A New Era
After the Barons disbanded, Rickwood Field endured two long years of no baseball. Seeing a need to revitalize the sport in the region, the Southern Athletic League was reorganized into the New Southern League, thus bringing a new Barons squad to Birmingham and integrating baseball at Rickwood Field in 1964.
The Barons managed to play just two years at Rickwood Field before briefly relocating to Mobile where their new owner, Charlie Finley, had roots. After the Barons returned in 1967, Finley replaced the old wooden outfield walls with a chainlink version and took down the beloved left field scoreboard to get Rickwood field ready for a new era.
But "new" doesn't always mean "better". Attendance declined rapidly and hit rock bottom with just 25,000 fans in 1975. Seeing the dwindling attendance numbers from his office in Chicago, Charlie Finley moved the Barons to Chattanooga in 1976.
When Rickwood Field became home of the University of Alabama-Birmingham baseball team in 1978, almost all of the wooden seats on its lower level were removed, forcing fans to sit on concrete risers. In addition to the subtraction, a new metal batting shed was built just outside the left field fence.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jack Leving led a group to buy the Memphis Chicks, but they still needed an experienced baseball person to bring direction and order to their ambitions. In 1980, Alabama football announcer John Forney traveled to Memphis to interview general manager Art Clarkson. The initial meeting went well but Clarkson was forced to climb over the eight-foot chain link fence to enter Rickwood Field when he came for a follow-up visit. Undaunted and unfazed, Clarkson accepted the offer as he saw the ballpark as a living museum with a lot of hidden luster behind the rust.
Thus the Barons were born anew in 1981, winning pennants in 1983 and 1987 before relocating to Hoover in 1988. The city took over the ballpark shortly thereafter. For decaes, Rickwood Field's offices were used by the city's school's athletics department while much of its surrounding area was used to park city vehicles such as buses and suburbans. Every once in a while, a high school game was played there but the rest of the time, old Rickwood Field just stood there, losing its old charm year by year. Still, after Comiskey Park succumbed to the wrecking ball in 1990, Rickwood Field became the oldest baseball park in America.
In 1992, Tom Crosby, Terry Slaughter, Coke Matthews, Alan Farr and Bill Cather organized a group called "The Friends of Rickwood" that was designed to bring back the ballpark's old charm. Reinforcements soon arrived in the form of the film industry. In 1993, filmmaker Ron Shelton repaired Rickwood Field in preparation for his new biopic on the life of baseball legend Ty Cobb. It proved to be a boon for the aging ballpark as both HBO and ESPN filmed and brought new light to Rickwood Field in the form of another movie (HBO: Soul of the Game) and commercials (ESPN).
In 1996, the Rickwood Classic was born. Once a year, the Barons of past and present gathered together to play a game. What makes this so special is not the fact that it brings so many people together, but that each year brings a different theme, with the teams wearing jerseys of the era. To top it off, the Barons' annual Hall of Fame class is announced before the game.
After it became the first ballpark to turn 100 on August 18, 2010, Boston's Fenway Park and Chicago's Wrigley Field each soon joined the very short list. On June 20, 2024, just two days after Willie Mays passed away, the San Francisco Giants (his former team) lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 6-5 at Rickwood Field in MLB's annual Field of Dreams Game.
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