02/20/09

Rickwood Field: A Historic Walking Tour

Text for the below tour is (slightly) adapted from "The Rickwood Self Guided Tour Brochure" available at the park, provided by the Rickwood Field Task Force. Images seen below can be seen in larger form by visiting the Rickwood Field image gallery.

Rickwood Field was built by Birmingham Industrialist Rick Woodward and its opening day was August 18, 1910. In 1993, the National Park Service (HAER) conducted a summer long research and documentation project confirming that Rickwood Field is, indeed, the oldest ball park in the nation. Rickwood was the home playing field for innumerable stars of the Southern Association, various Negro Leagues and the Southern League between 1910 and 1987, when the Birmingham Barons left for the suburban Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

During its golden era, Rickwood was the site for many exhibition games of barnstorming major league teams - and that's why so many Hall of Famers such as Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth had the opportunity to play here.

Despite the departure of the Barons, Rickwood Field is kept very busy in the present day. The Birmingham Industrial League, the Men's Over Thirty League, the Men's Over Forty League, the Police Athletic League, the city high school varsity baseball league, corporate events, occasional college games and the Annual Rickwood Classic keep Rickwood almost completely booked during baseball season.

The Friends of Rickwood have worked very hard to raise funds to do necessary repairs, maintenance and historic restoration. Current projects underway are new locker rooms for visiting teams (of course, in the vintage style) and a new women's restroom.

1. Main Entranceway - (inside the box offices) This is the way the park has looked since the 1940's. The only remaining original turnstile from the 1910 era is now in the possession of the Birmingham Barons Baseball Club at the Hoover Met.

2. Breezeway photographs - For decades, Birmingham Baron favorites were featured on this wall which, as you can see [in the image gallery], is not totally weather proof. The Friends of Rickwood have added Black Baron greats which included Birmingham native Willie Mays, future Hall of Famer. This is the main concession area at Rickwood Field, built when the park only held 3,000 people. You'll notice the low level of the windows - this was due to the diminutive size of the man that ran this concession for many years.

Once traveling up the ramp and out onto the concourse separating the box seats from the grandstand, you can see the covered right field bleachers that wrap quirkily out and around right field. Rickwood Field took Pittsburgh's former Forbes Field as its big league model, and the similarity is striking. Probably the most distinctive change here in the grandstand since its "golden age" in the 40's and 50's is the absence of overhead window fans and the wooden box seats and wooden row seats that had been moved here from the former Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants. (Old timers can still recall the "NY" emblems in wrought iron at the end of the grandstand rows. These seats finally rotted away and were removed in the early 70's and were available for purchase for many years under the south grandstand at Legion Field.)

3. Rickwood Pressbox - Rickwood old timers will tell you that the original Pressbox held a maximum of four people and was always on the roof - and they are correct. However, when HBO filmed "Soul of the Game" here in 1995 (starring Delroy Lindo, Mykul T. Williams and Blair Underwood) they recreated Washington D.C.'s Griffith Stadium which featured a vintage pressbox exactly like this. At the same time, the Friends of Rickwood had just learned that to rebuild a fully functional pressbox on the roof - with full modern conveniences - would cost an extra $75,000 in additional structural roof support. The Friends therefore decided to recreate the Griffith Stadium pressbox.

4. Rickwood Roof - Check out the roof that extends all the way around right field and back along the third base line. The original 1910 drawings show the grandstand roof ending at the dugouts. Please admire the fact that you are looking at a new $300,000 roof that was installed in 1994 - we say "new" because the last roof before this was installed in the 1950's. One of the many Rickwood legends tells of future Big Leaguer Jimmy Piersall being ejected from a Birmingham Baron game in 1955 - and retreating to the roof where he fired a water pistol at the offending umpire.

5. Drop-In Scoreboard - When the Friends of Rickwood were organized in 1993, one of the very first objectives was to replace the existing modernistic and aesthetically inappropriate 1970's-era electric scoreboard with the 1948-era classic scoreboard you see today. The leadership in charge of the park at that time was horrified at the prospect of taking down one of the few things that still worked, but once the vintage scoreboard replaced it, it was like blinders being removed. Suddenly, Rickwood began to reachieve its magic all over again. Visitors who remember the heated competition between Birmingham and Atlanta in the old Southern Association will notice the proper placement of the Atlanta Crackers on the scoreboard.

6. The Original Outfield Fence - Trust us, there is a concrete wall out beyond the scoreboard and all the outfield signs. When the park was first constructed, the location of the concrete wall marked the far reach of the playing field - a full 470' to left field. The first fence was wooden, then in 1928 it was replaced with the concrete wall that now stands. Only problem was, it was too far away for anyone to hit a homerun over it. Therefore, management yielded to marketing realities and built the wooden fence that you see now much closer in. Many oldtimers say the longest homerun ever hit at Rickwood was in 1948 when Walt Dropo's mighty blast cleared the wooden scoreboard and struck the concrete wall halfway up. If you walk out behind the scoreboard to inspect it, you can still see the X marking the spot on the wall to this day.

What happened to the left field bleachers? Due to dwindling crowds in the post-television age as well as mounting maintenance problems, the rambling wood left field bleachers were removed sometime in the 1970's. In their place now stands the UAB "Harry the Hat" Batting Building with the Bull Durham sign on its side. Also gone are "Glennon Gardens," the overflow seating area in front of the current left field wall and named for the popular Birmingham Barons skipper of the championship season of 1958. Rickwood's master plan does call for the rebuilding of the left field bleachers.

7. Outfield Signboards - Check out all the antique outfield signs. When Warner Bros. filmed the movie "Cobb" here in 1994 starring Tommy Lee Jones, they set their artisans to work designing period outfield signs to replicate major league ballparks of the twenties. Hence, the "Budweiser on Draught in Philly" sign. The Friends of Rickwood have spent $65,000 in making these movie props weather resistant and a permanent feature of the park. The "Reddy Kilowatt" billboard promoting Alabama Power Company is the most recently completed sign. Other long-term Birmingham businesses are currently being urged to have their advertising message done in the vintage style to add to the overall Rickwood experience.

8. The Arrow Shirt Sign - It's gone now, but one of Birmingham's most prominent examples of Jim Crowism were the "Negro bleachers" that once stood directly behind this sign board. Whenever the Birmingham Barons played in this park before 1963, if an African-American wanted to see the game, he or she would have to sit out in the blazing sun beyond the right field wall. However, the Negro American League also played here and, due to the number of future Hall of Famers they brought here (Jackie Robinson, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, et. al.), one would have to conclude they had far superior teams. And, in a small measure of justice, white fans who wanted to see the Black Barons play would sit in the "Negro bleachers" during the Negro League games played here.

9. The Field - You are walking out onto the infield laid out by the immortal Connie Mack of Philadelphia fame. In 1909, founder Rick Woodward sought advice from Cornelius MacGillicudy, the man who built Shibe Park and ran the Philadelphia baseball club. Mr. Woodward prevailed upon his friend to come to Birmingham to help lay out the dimensions of Rickwood Field.

10. Rickwood's Pitcher's Mound - From this mound, the greatest names in baseball have performed: Christy Mathewson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Satchel Paige, Burleigh Grimes, Rollie Fingers and of course, Dizzy Dean and Ray Caldwell. In what is generally considered the most epic game ever played at Rickwood Field, an aging alcoholic - former Major Leaguer named Ray Caldwell outdueled Dizzy Dean in 1931 to win the Dixie Series championship for Birmingham over the Houston Buffaloes. Take a look at the wooden louvers circling the stands below the roof line. These were recently re-installed to block the sun from fielders' eyes - just as in the old days.

11. The Gazebo Pressbox - You are looking at the Fullerton Gazebo, an exact replica of the original 1910 press box that adorned Rickwood Field from the very beginning. This replica was built in 1998 as a tribute to the Friends of Rickwood Field's first executive director, Chris Fullerton of Richmond, Virginia. Prior to his untimely death, Chris often remarked that without this pressbox, Rickwood "appeared to be a church without a steeple."

12. The Four Light Towers Atop the Roof - Obviously, one of the most distinctive architectural elements of Rickwood Field, contributing hugely to the park's antique feel. All four light towers were erected in 1936, making Rickwood one of the first minor league ballparks to host night games. These 75 foot high cantilevered structures represent state of the art technology for the 1930's.

13. Box Seats Halfway down the First Base Line - This is the spot of perhaps one of the most romantic events that ever happened at Rickwood. During the 1950 season, Baron first baseman Norm Zauchin chased a foul ball over to the wall so hard that his momentum tumbled him into the lap of a young lady sitting in the first row of the box seats. Later, he got the usher to introduce them and the pair were married two years later.

14. The Tunnel Beneath the Stands - In 1912, Barons owner Rick Woodward was ejected from a game for engaging in fisticuffs in this tunnel with legendary umpire Bulldog Williams. So, do you still think George Steinbrenner is meddlesome?