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Date | June 20, 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Venue | Rickwood Field | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
City | Birmingham, Alabama | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Attendance | 10,800 (expected) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Television | Fox |
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 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]
The Homestead Grays were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States.
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.
Willie Dean McGee is an American professional baseball coach and former outfielder who is an assistant coach for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for four teams, over 18 seasons. He won two batting titles and was named Major League Baseball's 1985 National League MVP. McGee primarily played center and right field, winning three Gold Glove Awards for defensive excellence. McGee spent the majority of his 18-year career playing for the Cardinals, helping them win the 1982 World Series with his outstanding performance in Game 3. A four-time All-Star, McGee accumulated 2,254 hits during his career.
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.
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Regions Field is the name of a minor league baseball park in the Southside community of Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. It is the home field for the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League, and it replaced Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover as their home field. It also serves as the second home field along with Jerry D. Young Memorial Field for the UAB Blazers. Regions Field is located adjacent to the Railroad Park, just south of downtown Birmingham.
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The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central Division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals have played their home games at Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. One of the nation's oldest and most successful professional baseball clubs, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, the most of any NL team and second in MLB only to the New York Yankees. The team has won 19 National League pennants, third-most of any team behind the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. St. Louis has also won 15 division titles in the East and Central divisions.
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.
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The Legacy Awards are presented annually by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM), headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. The "Hall of Game Award"—established in 2014 and honoring players who personify "the spirit of the way the game was played in the Negro Leagues"—is the only such award actively presented since 2018.
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