MLB legend Willie Mays unable to attend Rickwood Field game between Giants, Cardinals

18/06/2024

As MLB makes history this week with its first-ever regular-season game in Birmingham, Ala., one of Alabama’s greatest players won’t be able to attend the contest at Rickwood Field.

Hall of Famer Willie Mays told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday morning that he won’t be in attendance Thursday as the San Francisco Giants take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

“I wish I could come out to Rickwood Field this week to be with you all and enjoy that field with my friends. Rickwood’s been part of my life for all of my life. Since I was a kid. It was just ‘around the corner there’ from Fairfield [the town where Mays went to high school], and it felt like it had been there forever. Like a church,” he said in the statement. “The first big thing I ever put my mind to was to play at Rickwood Field. It wasn’t a dream. It was something I was going to do. I was going to work hard to be one of the Birmingham Black Barons and play ball at Rickwood Field.

“That’s what I did. It was my start. My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was IT — everything I wanted.”

Rickwood Field was home to the Negro League’s Birmingham Black Barons, a club that Mays played for in 1948, from 1920 to 1960.

With the Giants chosen as one of the teams to take part in the first-ever MLB game at the field, it certainly would have been fitting to have Mays in attendance.

Mays, 93, is widely considered baseball’s greatest living player. He won the World Series with the Giants in 1954 and was a 24-time All-Star during his career, tied with Stan Musial for second-most behind Hank Aaron’s 25. Mays won the 1954 major league batting title and was voted NL MVP in 1954 and 1965.

MLB has been working with the city of Birmingham and Friends of Rickwood nonprofit group to renovate the 10,800-seat ballpark, which at 114 years old is the oldest professional ballpark in the United States.

“I’d like to be there, but I don’t move as well as I used to. So I’m going to watch from my home. But it will be good to see that,” he later said in his statement. “I’m glad that the Giants, Cardinals and MLB are doing this, letting everyone get to see pro ball at Rickwood Field. Good to remind people of all the great ball that has been played there, and all the players. All these years and it is still here. So am I. How about that?”

The game goes Thursday at 7:15 p.m. ET / 4:15 p.m. PT. There will also be special events at the field in the lead-up to the Giants-Cardinals matchup, with a Birmingham Barons game on Tuesday and a Juneteenth celebration on Wednesday.

— With files from The Associated Press

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