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| Date | June 20, 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Rickwood Field | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Birmingham, Alabama | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Managers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 10,800 (expected) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ceremonial first pitch | 6:15 CST | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Television | Fox | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TV announcers | Joe Davis (play-by-play) John Smoltz (analyst) Ken Rosenthal (reporter) Tom Verducci (reporter) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues is an upcoming professional baseball game to be played between the National League (NL) West's San Francisco Giants and the NL Central's St. Louis Cardinals on June 20, 2024. The game is set to be played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, the former home of the Negro leagues' Birmingham Black Barons, just one day after Juneteenth. This will be the first regular-season Major League Baseball (MLB) game played in the state of Alabama.
On June 13, 2023, initial reports revealed that the Giants would play in a Field of Dreams style game, celebrating Willie Mays in Alabama. [1] Due to construction at the MLB at Field of Dreams site, games in 2023 and 2024 were unable to happen. However, MLB decided to shift their marketing into a game to honor Willie Mays, the Negro Leagues, and Juneteenth. [2]
Preparatory renovations of the park are scheduled to begin in October 2023. Jerry Brewer of The Washington Post wrote, "MLB is tasked with performing tasteful cosmetic surgery on a ballpark known for its old and minimalist charm." [3] The official name for the game was unveiled as MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues on August 4, 2023. [4]
On February 28, 2024, MLB released a poster preview video for the game. The poster indicated the Giants are planning on wearing the San Francisco Sea Lions uniforms and the Cardinals to wear St. Louis Stars uniforms to pay homage to the cities histories of the Negro Leagues. [5]
The game will be the first MLB game in the state of Alabama. [6] It will be played on a Thursday and will be the first game of a three-game series followed by an off-day and two games at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Saturday and Sunday. [7]
Willie Howard Mays Jr., nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid", is an American former center fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Regarded as one of the greatest players ever, Mays ranks second behind only Babe Ruth on most all-time lists, including those of The Sporting News and ESPN. Mays played in the National League (NL) between 1951 and 1973 for the New York / San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
Oracle Park is a baseball stadium in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has served as the ballpark of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's current name was purchased by the Oracle Corporation in 2019.
The following are the baseball events of the year 2004 throughout the world.
Michael Scott Matheny is an American former professional baseball player and former manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for 13 seasons as a catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Francisco Giants. Matheny later spent seven seasons as the manager of the Cardinals. One of the most accomplished defensive players of his era, he won four Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. As manager, Matheny's teams won one National League (NL) pennant and three NL Central division titles.
Rickwood Field, located in Birmingham, Alabama, is the oldest professional baseball park in the United States. It was built for the Birmingham Barons in 1910 by industrialist and team-owner Rick Woodward and has served as the home park for the Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro leagues. Though the Barons moved their home games to the Hoover Met in the suburbs, and most recently to Regions Field in Birmingham, Rickwood Field has been preserved and is undergoing gradual restoration as a "working museum" where baseball's history can be experienced. The Barons also play one regular season game a year at Rickwood Field. Rickwood Field is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The following are the baseball events of the year 2002 throughout the world.
David Michael Bell is an American former professional baseball third baseman, who is currently the manager for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB). Over the course of his 12-year MLB playing career, Bell appeared at all four infield positions while playing for the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, and Milwaukee Brewers. He made his MLB debut for the Indians in 1995.
The Birmingham Black Barons were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1920 until 1960. They shared their home field of Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, with the white Birmingham Barons, usually drawing larger crowds and equal press.
Busch Stadium is a baseball stadium located in St. Louis, Missouri. The stadium serves as the ballpark of Major League Baseball's St. Louis Cardinals. It has a seating capacity of 44,383, with 3,706 club seats and 61 luxury suites. It replaced Busch Memorial Stadium and occupies a portion of that stadium's former footprint. A commercial area dubbed Ballpark Village was built adjacent to the stadium over the remainder of the former stadium's footprint.
The following are the baseball events of the year 1982 throughout the world.
Hinchliffe Stadium is a 7,500-seat stadium located in Paterson, New Jersey. The stadium is located atop the Great Falls of the Passaic River, and is part of the surrounding National Historical Park. The stadium, built in 1932, was closed in 1996 after years of neglect but reopened in 2023.
Jarry Park Stadium is a former baseball stadium, home to the Montreal Expos, from 1969 through 1976, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Expos were Major League Baseball's first Canadian franchise. It served as a temporary home until Olympic Stadium was made available to the Expos in 1977; its roof was completed a decade later. The ballpark was typically called simply "Jarry Park" or Parc Jarry.
The 1971 Major League Baseball season was the final season for the Senators in Washington, D.C., before the team's relocation to the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb Arlington for the following season, as the Texas Rangers, leaving the nation's capital without a baseball team of its own until 2005.
The following is a timeline of franchise evolution in Major League Baseball. The histories of franchises in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA), Union Association (UA), and American Association (AA) before they joined the National League (NL) are also included. In 1900 the minor league Western League renamed itself the American League (AL). All of the 1899 Western League teams were a part of the transformation with the Saint Paul Apostles moving to Chicago and to play as the White Stockings. In 1901 the AL declared itself a Major League. For its inaugural major league season the AL dropped its teams in Indianapolis, Buffalo and Minneapolis and replaced them with franchises in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and the Kansas City Blues moved to Washington to play as the Senators.
Brandon Michael Crawford is an American professional baseball shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the San Francisco Giants. Crawford played college baseball for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was selected in the fourth round of the 2008 MLB draft by the Giants.
William Henry Greason is an American former professional baseball player who later became a Baptist minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was born in Atlanta, where, as he told a 2020 interviewer, "I grew up across the street from Martin Luther King Jr." Greason enlisted in the United States Marine Corps during World War II — one of the first black Marines — and did his basic training at Montford Point. He embarked with the 66th Supply Platoon, an all-black unit, for the Pacific Theater of Operations and took part in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
The San Francisco Sea Lions were a Negro league baseball team in the West Coast Negro Baseball League, based in San Francisco, California, in 1946. Following the collapse of the league, the Sea Lions played as an independent barnstorming team.
MLB at Field of Dreams is a recurring Major League Baseball (MLB) regular-season game played in a ballpark adjacent to Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, a site popularized by the 1989 baseball film Field of Dreams. The first edition of the game was played on August 12, 2021, with the Chicago White Sox defeating the New York Yankees, 9–8. The second edition of the game was played August 11, 2022, with the Chicago Cubs defeating the Cincinnati Reds, 4–2. Both games were held on the second Thursday of August.
