The MLB Field of Dreams Game won’t be played in 2024, but a game with a similar format at a historic venue will be contested on Thursday between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. It will be played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., the
oldest existing ballpark in the United States.
“MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” is what Major League Baseball named the game, and it has taken on even more meaning in the days leading up to it. That’s because Rickwood Field is close to the childhood home of Alabama native Willie Mays, who started his pro career with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, which counted Rickwood Field as its home ballpark. Mays, who spent most of his career with the Giants,
died on Tuesday at the age of 93. This game was originally created as a tribute to Mays, to the Negro Leagues and as a commemoration of Juneteenth, which is one day prior.
When announcing the creation of the game last June, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred singled out Mays as one of the reasons why the league chose Rickwood Field.
“We are proud to bring Major League Baseball to historic Rickwood Field in 2024,”
Manfred said last year. “This opportunity to pay tribute to the Negro Leagues as the Giants and Cardinals play a regular-season game at this iconic location is a great honor. The legacy of the Negro Leagues and its greatest living player, Willie Mays, is one of excellence and perseverance. We look forward to sharing the stories of the Negro Leagues throughout this event next year.”
Rickwood Field opened in 1910 and has been home to several teams over the past 100-plus years. In addition to the Black Barons, it has also hosted the Birmingham Barons, a minor-league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox best known as the baseball team Michael Jordan played for. While Jordan didn’t play at Rickwood Field, MLB teams such as the Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates occasionally held Spring Training there.
Additionally, several of the game’s all-time greats took the field at Rickwood at one point or another, whether in the Negro Leagues or in the minor leagues.
MLB says that of the 351 members who have been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., 181 have either played, managed, umpired, or led a team at Rickwood Field. That means more than half of the Hall of Fame can trace their footprints back to Rickwood, and the famed ballpark has since been
included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Thursday’s game will be the first regular-season MLB game not just to take place at Rickwood, but it will also be the first MLB game ever contested in Alabama. Both the Cardinals and Giants will
wear commemorative throwback jerseys honoring Negro League teams. The Cardinals will wear jerseys of the St. Louis Stars, while the Giants will don outfits of the San Francisco Sea Lions.
Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn talked of the importance of this game and how thrilled he is to be able to honor those who came before him.
“Playing at Rickwood, for me, is going to be pretty special,”
Winn said in February. “Growing up, looking up to players like Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, and Willie Mays, it’s going to be a true honor to be there this year. The guys that paved the way before us have made it easier for us. We’re so thankful. It’s truly a blessing to have Black players to look up to, and we want to follow in their footsteps.”
The minor leagues also held a tribute game, on Tuesday, appropriately featuring the Birmingham Barons, who took on the Montgomery Biscuits, an affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Biscuits prevailed, 6-5, in a contest in which both teams wore throwback jerseys of Negro League teams as well.
MLB at Rickwood Field will be the seventh of eight regular-season games this year to take place outside of one of the 30 teams’ home ballparks. The first were two games in Seoul between the Dodgers and Padres in March, followed by two games in Mexico City between the Astros and Rockies in April, then a two-game set in London between the Mets and Phillies earlier this month. Following the game at Rickwood Field, there will be an August game in Williamsport, Pa., as the Yankees and Tigers will partake in the MLB Little League Classic.
As for the Field of Dreams Game, it hasn’t gone away. It’s just on hiatus. Construction is underway at the complex, which hosted the games in 2021 and 2022, and could host future games once renovations are completed.
