Each year around this time, on the first Wednesday after Memorial Day, a few thousand souls gather in a ballpark where the concrete set before Arizona was a state and where the steel ribs were forged a quarter century before there was a baseball Hall of Fame.
They come to see baseball without its makeup on, as unadorned as the day it was born. And if there is any spitting to be done — and when isn’t there in this game — it is aimed directly in the eye of progress.
The Rickwood Classic it’s called, named after the Alabama park built by steel-mill owner Rick Woodward to house his professional ballplayers, the Coal Barons, in 1910.
The Barons’ great-great grandchildren, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, return once a year, if only to perpetuate Rickwood Field’s claim as America’s oldest surviving professional ballpark. On Wednesday, the Barons, dressed in 1940s replica uniforms, lost to the Jacksonville Suns 8-2 in a game devoid of such modern necessities as the exploding video board, the gourmet food court and the tool race.
It is a whimsical clash of eras whenever millennial ballplayer meets last-century ballpark. There was 26-year-old Baron Marcus Lemon on Wednesday touring every inch of Rickwood in his 1948 uni while taking photos of it all on his iPad.
“This is awesome,” he said, as he made his way back from the outfield wall where he visited the plaque commemorating Walt Dropo’s 1948 homer that cleared the interior wooden fence and smacked into a distant concrete wall. He had much more to see, like every interior wall decorated with the black-and-whites of those who had played here before. Like the photo of Babe Ruth, leaning against the fence holding back the kids. Or the one of Willie Mays, relaxed and smiling.
Hank Aaron played here as both an Indianapolis Clown (Negro Leagues) and a Brave.
Stan Musial homered clean over the right-field bleachers.
“It’s unbelievable to think of those who played on this same field,” Lemon said. Among those was his father, Chet Lemon, who went on to play 16 years in the majors with the White Sox and Tigers.
“When we first describe Rickwood to the players, they are a little hesitant,” Barons general manager Jonathan Nelson, dressed in a period bow tie, said. “But once they get here and see it, they tell me, ‘We should play more here.’”
Of course, that sounds fine in the abstract. It would never work in the reality of today’s baseball — even at the minor league level.
The players would grow weary of changing in the closet of the 1910 clubhouse, raking their cleats on the bare concrete floor. And the fans would vote by their absence for all the amenities that compete today with a game that essentially still moves at a 19th-century pace.
This, after all, is the era of the disposable ballpark. We are no more loyal to these buildings than we are to our cellphones.
Look at Atlanta. The place where Aaron launched No. 715, where the Braves won their only World Series is a parking lot. Soon, the place where Bobby Cox managed his last game and the infield fly rule became a burning civic issue and Randy Johnson threw his perfect game against the Braves will be abandoned for a greater revenue stream off the Cobb cloverleaf.
Meanwhile, a few miles away, the Georgia Dome overlooks its imminent demise, with the Falcons’ new stadium rising next door. Didn’t it and Turner Field just open their gates yesterday?
Look also at the Barons, Rickwood’s foundation tenant. They left for good in 1987 and are working on their second new ballpark in 28 years.
How can such a clumsy old place as Rickwood survive, with its obstructed views and with its outfield fence advertising, among other things, a department store that went defunct in 1986 (Pizitz of Birmingham)?
In its day, she was a beaut. Woodward was committed to going state-of-the-art in 1910, to building the finest minor league park in the land. It was one of only a handful of steel and concrete baseball parks in the country at the time. He even brought in the venerable Connie Mack to consult on the design.
Through the years, some stars had their start at Rickwood. Others were just passing through, hopping off the train taking them north after spring training just long enough to play a game.
This was a field where men named Stuffy Steward, Everett “Yam” Yargan, Moose Clabaugh, Urbane Pickering and Burleigh Grimes walked. (They just don’t make handles like that anymore).
In a city cleaved by segregation, Rickwood served both sides of the fractured community. It also was home to the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons, whose surviving members still gather during the Classic and remind the world that this was their ballpark, too.
Maybe you weren’t there when the Black Barons turned three double plays and beat the famed Kansas City Monarchs 4-3 in 1959. But Tony Lloyd, the Black Barons’ second baseman then, will be happy to fill you in.
“I always enjoy coming back here. Just to remember and be remembered is nice,” Lloyd said.
In such nostalgia, Rickwood found its salvation.
When the Barons left for suburban Hoover in ’87, the city-owned park without a team easily could have slid into ruins. But a group of history-minded citizens formed the Friends of Rickwood, who devised a strategy of turning the place into a working museum. Besides the Rickwood Classic, the place is booked another 150 days or so a year by high school and college games and even the occasional corporate outing, said David Brewer, the Friends director.
It’s the kind of blueprint that could serve to save other classic southern parks, such as Savannah’s Grayson Stadium (opened in 1926), Macon’s Luther Williams Field (1929) and Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium (1930).
Trying to stay one step ahead of decay isn’t easy. Although not original, the Rickwood seats are weathered and creaking. The cement foundation needs work. Time of first pitch Wednesday afternoon: 12:31. Time on the old outfield scoreboard clock: 7:28.
The payoff comes with every corner turned and each glimpse into the past. The green period façade. The blackboard at the entrance that spells out the day’s lineup. The preserved manager’s office in the home clubhouse true right down to the waiting can of Falstaff beer, the Prince Albert in a can and the steamer trunk-sized radio. The hand-turned scoreboard. Even the aisles that are too narrow and the steps that are too steep.
“Baseball is America’s game, and is part of a community’s and a nation’s societal fabric. And the stadium is at the center of it,” Brewer said.
A rare few ballparks take that sentiment very seriously and refuse to be thrown away.
In one, for a single day a year, they still play a professional game in which the crack of the bat is the loudest sound in the park and there’s never once a chicken dance between innings.
Somewhere there’s always another new club suite being built, but not here.
