By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Much has been said over the past week about MLB at Rickwood Field Salute to the Negro Leagues in Birmingham and the city’s top elected official is still in awe.
“In one week, Birmingham, Alabama was mentioned over 1,000 times on broadcast television in a positive light and that doesn’t account for the millions of impressions [on social media]” Mayor Randall Woodfin told the Birmingham Times. “ … that was the first time in a long time people saw Birmingham past the 1963 [Civil Rights marches], they saw it past black and white and they actually saw it in 4K.”
The game played on June 20 between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants was the first National or American League regular-season game played in Alabama and concluded a week of activities that highlighted the significance of the Negro Leagues in baseball’s history.
The contest was played in historic Rickwood Field, the oldest baseball park in America and showcased “a celebration of the past while incorporating the Negro Leagues into the present,” Woodfin said.
The mayor echoed many, local and national, when he said the city has never hosted a sporting event of this magnitude.
“Whether it’s the [2022] World Games … the [1996] Olympic soccer or other major events that we’ve had, nothing has come to this,” he said. “It was multi-ethnic, it was multi-racial, and it was multi-generational. It wasn’t just the Negro League players who were honored, but it was our elders who got a chance to come.”
What made it more special, he said, was there was a time when those same elders would visit the stadium “and when Black players were playing, they had to sit on one side and when it was white players playing, they had to sit on a different side.”
The mayor applauded MLB for its outreach that touched nearly every sector of the city from Children’s of Alabama; Negro Southern League Museum; Regions Field; A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club (AGGBGC); the Carver Theatre and other venues.
The festivities were as much about the “investments in the future” as it was the past, he said.
“This city has a rich history as it relates to baseball, particularly around the Negro Leagues, [look at the] massive impact of Rickwood Field and the players that came through and made history, what better way to honor that than making sure the next generation not only knows that history but is impacted by today’s game.”
The mayor was at more than a dozen events including at AGGBGC where Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred Jr. spoke to club members.
“This is just not about the past but connecting it to the future, the next generation to make sure America’s past time is literally passed to the next generation,” Woodfin said. “You can’t exclude inner city kids and you can’t exclude little Black boys.”
Summing up the past week, he said, “You want to talk about Birmingham being the best version of itself, you saw that in live and living color and on display June 20.”
