How the mlb came to birmingham and what it means for one of the nation’s emerging sports cities
JUNE 14, 2024 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
By Charles Vaughan
Gerald Watkins was one of the millions glued to their television sets on August 12, 2021, as White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson blasted a walkoff home run into the cornfields of Dyersville, Iowa. The dramatic finish capped Major League Baseball’s first-ever Field of Dreams game, played at the filming site of the legendary 1989 baseball movie.
A Birmingham native and lifelong baseball fan, Watkins was fascinated by the spectacle, later calling it “fantastic” and “special.” As he watched Anderson’s opposite-field shot soar through the summer night and descend over the right field fence, a thought entered his mind.
“Why not here?”
On June 20, the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals will meet at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field in front of a crowd of over 8,000, marking the first-ever Major League Baseball regular season game held in the state of Alabama. To honor the stadium’s past, the teams will eskew their typical jerseys and don the uniforms of the Negro League San Francisco Sea Lions and the St. Louis Stars. Interactive historical photo displays will be placed around the concourse, and former Negro Leaguers will be on site to sign autographs and talk to fans.
The days leading up to the game will be filled with festivities, including a minor league matchup between the Birmingham Barons and the Montgomery Biscuits, a celebrity softball game featuring Birmingham natives Roy Wood, Jr. and Jameis Winston, among others, and a concert from hip-hop producer Metro Boomin. Tickets to the major league game are selling for over $400, but fans will be able to attend the rest of the week’s events for less than $25 a day.
Officially titled MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues, the Cardinals vs. Giants game will be held in the nation’s oldest active ballpark, a cathedral of black baseball history which has stood in Birmingham’s West End since 1910. During the stadium’s glory days, Rickwood was the home field of the Birmingham Black Barons and hosted such legends as Willie Mays and Satchel Paige. Among many other players, MLB at Rickwood Field will pay tribute to Black Barons alumni Mays and Bill Greason, the latter of whom still lives in Birmingham.
MLB is in the midst of a concerted effort to honor segregation-era baseball players, most notably demonstrated by their recent announcement that all Negro League statistics will be incorporated into the MLB leaderboard. The game’s alignment with this initiative gives the impression of a campaign planned several years in advance, but MLB at Rickwood Field wasn’t on the league’s radar as recently as 2021. In a fast-moving development, Major League Baseball made its way to Birmingham through the persistent efforts of Watkins and his organization, significant buy-in from the city and the community, and a little bit of luck.
Rickwood Field hasn’t had a permanent tenant since 1987, when the Barons moved out to the Hoover Met. The park has been in the hands of the Friends of Rickwood, a nonprofit devoted to preserving and promoting the historic stadium, since 1992. Watkins, a retired banker, has been the group’s chairman for nearly a decade, a responsibility he describes as a “lifelong dream.” It was he who first led the charge to bring Major League Baseball to Birmingham, reaching out to the league after learning about the Field of Dreams game.
“My thought was, if they had a game in Iowa, why not have a game here? [Rickwood is] a real Field of Dreams,” said Watkins. “This is a place where Willie Mays dreamt about being in the big leagues, and he ultimately made it. So I pitched that idea to them.”
“Well, I tried to pitch it,” he laughed. “That was my concept, but I couldn't get any traction at all.”
Watkins had almost abandoned the idea when a chance encounter finally got the ball rolling.
“A gentleman who was part of the Atlanta Braves minor league coaching staff came to the ballpark to do a tour [in the summer of 2021],” Watkins said. “We became friends, and he told me, ‘You should have a Field of Dreams kind of game here.’ And I said, "That'd be wonderful, but I can't seem to get any traction." And he said, ‘"I think I can help you.’"
“He was a 40-year lifer in the baseball world, and he knew everybody,” said Watkins. “He called a couple people with MLB in August, called me back, and said, ‘I think I got their attention. Just sit tight.’”
“Finally, in the fall of 2021, I got an email and a phone call that [Major League Baseball] wanted to come down and look at the park.”
That October, a party of MLB representatives descended on Birmingham to determine the feasibility of hosting a game at Rickwood. The officials examined the stadium in excruciating detail, taking drone shots, precisely measuring the park’s dimensions, and making a list of upgrades the field would require. Upon the group’s departure, they instructed Watkins to keep news of their visit a secret; nine months would pass without a word from on high.
“They told me, ‘Don't call us, we'll call you,” Watkins recalled. “‘Please don't share this outside of the people that have to know because people will bug us to death, and we don't operate under that kind of pressure.’”
Around the time of the 2022 All-Star Game, MLB officials finally informed Friends of Rickwood of their plans to come to Birmingham in 2024.
Despite his original struggles contacting the league and the extended waiting period that followed their visit, Watkins was never overwhelmed by the process.
“It's just tremendously rewarding and exciting because we have always felt like we had a treasure here and now the world is going to know about it,” he said. “I've actually had a great deal of fun. I honestly can say I haven't been stressed about anything. There's been a lot of people coming through the park. There's been a lot of media requests. There have been gawkers. There's been a lot of activity.”
”I've tried to just enjoy it all because this could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Watkins added. “We hope it's not, but I never could have dreamed that I would be in the position I'm in and I'm thankful for that.”
Watkins fell in love with the mystique of Rickwood Field over five decades ago, a 10-year old boy watching Reggie Jackson swing for the fences. The media attention surrounding the game, while intimidating at times, has allowed the stadium’s guardian to inspire the same childlike wonder in baseball legends like CC Sabathia and Johnny Damon.
“The big leaguers that come in here are pretty in awe about what we have here. A lot of them haven't seen a ballpark this old,” Watkins said. “We brought them out here, showed them around, and we played catch with the old gloves, and most of them didn't want to leave. They were so enthralled by what they were seeing and feeling when they were here. Being able to share that with so many people has been just tremendously fun and rewarding.”
But Watkins’ work wasn’t complete after securing a commitment from the league -- in fact, it was just beginning. In order to make the stadium viable for an MLB game, Friends of Rickwood would have to replace its century-old dirt, which bore the weight of 182 different Hall of Famers. They would need to cover the advertisements painted on the outfield walls in padding, at least temporarily. They would need to extend the netting down the foul lines. They would need to put a batter’s eye into place, upgrade the stadium’s restrooms and concession stands, install multiple video screens, and expand the building’s exterior plaza.
The organization originally planned on financing the upgrades through fundraising, but the magnitude of the renovations changed those plans.
“[The expenses] far outstripped the money that we thought we could raise, so we got in touch with the City of Birmingham, connected them with Major League Baseball, and the city agreed to [provide] those funds,” said Watkins.
The refurbishment process began in the fall of 2023 and was completed in May 2024. In successfully fulfilling the league’s requests, Watkins credits massive community support along with assistance from the City of Birmingham, who he says he “can’t thank enough.”
“The city is all in,” said Watkins. “The corporate community is all in. The individuals who come out here, the board members who come out here and clean toilets and paint the fences and the rails, they’re all in. A lot of people are playing a part in this and I think the community can be really proud about what is going to happen here.”
According to Dr. Darin White, a professor at Samford University and the executive director of the school’s Center for Sports Analytics, the city’s commitment to MLB at Rickwood didn’t materialize overnight. The event is a milestone on a journey, he says, a manifestation of Birmingham’s decade-long investment into sports infrastructure.
“Take a look at what's happened around Regions Field [which opened in 2013],” said White. “In just ten years, just look at what's happened to that region. You could certainly make the argument that none of that would be there if it weren't for the Barons and the ownership of the Barons being willing to make that move.”
“You've also got the redevelopment of the BJCC and Legacy Arena, you've got the whole Uptown area, and you've got Protective Stadium,” White added. “As a community, we finally discovered the collective will to invest in our sports infrastructures, in our sports tourism. It’s just made a major difference within our city on multiple levels.”
In White’s eyes, the 2022 World Games were a blueprint that proved Birmingham capable of hosting events of any caliber.
“It was a proof of concept,” said White. “From an execution standpoint, the World Games was outstanding. It was really a well-run event from top to bottom, and that's what event organizers ultimately are looking for. There's thousands and thousands of sporting events out there that are always looking for locations, and they want to make a profit. They want to be able to draw a lot of fans and provide a great experience, and we were able to prove that we could do an event like that and do it really well.”
Sports Business Journal recently named Birmingham third in the nation at attracting major sporting events among cities with no “Big Five” pro team, a fact that White cited as evidence of the city’s increasing attractiveness with organizers.
“Organizers want to ensure their event will get support from the local community, that people are going to rally behind it, that they’re going to get lots of volunteers,” said White. “They want to ensure their event isn’t going to be lost in the shuffle of all the other things going on in a city. Birmingham has proven it is capable of that.”
According to White, the long-term impact of events like MLB at Rickwood are immeasurable.
“It's great for our current population, but it's also great for future growth, because it's a way for our city to showcase itself to others,” he said. “If a brand like Major League Baseball is willing to invest the kind of money they're going to invest and come to our city and put that game on international television, it is the best marketing a city could possibly do. You just can't buy that kind of exposure.”
“What it does for what I would call ‘brand Birmingham’ is massive; it recasts Birmingham in a new way in people's minds,” White added. “Tourism, potential future residents, companies wanting to relocate to our city, future economic growth -- all of those things are brand-building benefits that an event like this can and will have on Birmingham.”
Like White, Watkins sees the game as a triumph of collaboration between Birmingham’s government and sports business leaders and views MLB at Rickwood as a vehicle through which to showcase the city’s growth and refute the image of Birmingham that still lingers in the minds of some.
“I think Birmingham offers a high quality of living. We have a great restaurant scene, we've got great hotels,” said Watkins. “We've got one of the top hospitals in the world. We’ve got a great university. People will come to town and they'll see all those things and hopefully they'll leave with a new idea of Birmingham.”
“The economic impact is going to be wonderful, but I think the image impact is going to be even more so. We've had a checkered past, but that's a long way away. We can talk about what we think is a new Birmingham and share these things in a way that we couldn't do otherwise.”