Major League Baseball (MLB) is honoring Negro League Baseball in a tribute game at Rickwood Field on June 20 along with a pregame ceremony commemorating a well-known and beloved baseball Hall of Famer.
The game, titled “A Tribute to the Negro Leagues,” will also honor Alabama native Willie Mays who began his career with the Birmingham Black Barons before playing in the MLB alongside other players in the Negro League.
Mays, also known as the “Say Hey Kid,” died Tuesday afternoon mere days ahead of the tribute game. He was 93. While Mays was not going to attend the game, he announced on Monday that he would be following along with the tribute game at home.
“My heart will be with all of you who are honoring the Negro League ballplayers, who should always be remembered, including all my teammates on the Black Barons,” Mays said in a statement to San Francisco Chronicle. “I wanted to thank Major League Baseball, the Giants, the Cardinals and all the fans who’ll be at Rickwood or watching the game. It’ll be a special day, and I hope the kids will enjoy it and be inspired by it.”
Mays was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 and the New York Mets retired his number, 24, in 2022.
Rickwood Field has significance to both Mays’ career and the history of baseball. It’s the oldest baseball field in the United States and was also home to the Birmingham Barons and Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues in the early-to-mid 1900s where Mays began his career.
Gerald Watkins, the chairman of the board and executive director of the Friends of Rickwood, spoke with APR last July. He said Rickwood Field cannot be compared to the field in the 1989 film Field of Dreams.
“Our field is a real field where real dreams were made, unlike a movie set,” he said. “It's older than Fenway Park. It's older than, than Wrigley Field. It is the oldest baseball park in America, and that really makes it the oldest baseball park in the world."
Watkins said the tribute game is not associated Field of Dreams in any way, and the game is not named after the film.
“That name was attached to that game by Major League Baseball, the game in Iowa because of movie,” Watkins explained. “A lot of folks have called this already the Field of Dreams game, and it's not a Field of Dreams game.”
“MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” with the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants matchup will begin at 6:15 p.m. at Rickwood Field on June 20.
