My love of baseball began at Rickwood Field: Op-ed (2024)

This is a guest opinion.

Tonight the eyes of the baseball world will be on Birmingham’s Rickwood Field as the San Francisco Giants play the St. Louis Cardinals in a wonderful tribute to the Negro Leagues. I will be there with my son Sam and it will be the fullest of full circle moments in my love of baseball.

I first laid eyes on Rickwood Field in 1969 when my Dad, the original Sam Malone, took me to my first professional game at Rickwood. It was love at first sight. I could not get over how green everything was and the giant scoreboard immediately grabbed my attention.

Later in that summer, on August 30, 1969, my Dad took me to my first major league game which featured the Chicago Cubs against the Atlanta Braves at Fulton County Stadium. Wouldn’t you know it but Hank Aaron homered that day, the 547th of his storied career, and my love of baseball exploded.

During my childhood years, my Dad and I attended 15 to 20 games a season at Rickwood where we saw the Birmingham A’s play in the Double AA Southern League. I couldn’t get enough of the place. I probably asked my Dad every day during the summer: “Dad, when are we going to our next game at Rickwood!?”

During those trips to games at Rickwood my Dad would tell me about the rich history of the ballpark and the many iconic players who had played there, most notably the great -- now late -- Willie Mays of Fairfield, Alabama. It was a Who’s Who of all-time baseball greats.

In the early 1970s, major league teams frequently played spring training games at Rickwood as they headed north. In 1971, on back-to-back nights at Rickwood, I saw games featuring the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and Washington Senators. What a thrill it was as a nine-year-old to see all-time greats such as Hank Aaron, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski. Before these games -- in something you would never see today -- children were allowed to be on the field unsupervised to obtain autographs. In an incredible stroke of fortune, I was able to get the autograph of Ted Williams, the last major leaguer to hit .400 and who was then the manager of the Senators. I still have that autograph and another program from those 1971 Spring Training games at Rickwood.

I played baseball for Mountain Brook High School from 1977 to 1979 as a catcher. In what seemed like a bad break in 1978, but now seems serendipitous, our home field was being renovated in 1978 so my Spartans had the wonderful luck of playing three “home” games at Rickwood against our biggest rivals, Shades Valley, Homewood, and Vestavia.

To be able to play on the same field where all-time greats like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron played was the thrill of a lifetime. Vestavia, as they regularly did, beat us. We won our other two games at Rickwood against Homewood and Shades Valley with the win against Shades Valley being the only one I remember us having against the Mountaineers in my three years at Mountain Brook.

One thing a catcher always does is check out the distance from home plate to the back stop. At Rickwood that distance was quite large, at least 20 yards. I desperately did not want any balls to get by me and have to make that sprint to the distant backstop with a runner hightailing it around the bases. Thankfully, none did.

My Spartan teammates will attest I was not a very good hitter but, for some reason, I hit well at Rickwood, going six for eight there, including three for three versus Homewood. My only explanation for my “hitting spree” is that I was inspired by Rickwood history.

Those many games my Dad and I attended at Rickwood when I was a kid were some of the best times of my life. It was just the two of us spending time together, talking about baseball and life, in that order.

My Dad lived a full and meaningful life, passing at age 90. During one of Dad’s last outings before he had to move into a nursing home, he, my son Sam, and I went out for a drive after Thanksgiving. We went by Legion Field and laughed and smiled about the many great times we had there and grimaced about some results you never get over. Our last stop of that day was at Rickwood Field, where we sat and talked about how special our times at Rickwood had been.

When MLB announced it was going to play a regular season game in Iowa at the “Field of Dreams,” I immediately thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be something if they played a game at Rickwood one day?”

Now, that incredible day is here.

Thank you to the Friends of Rickwood for preserving Rickwood against the odds to make this possible. A special thanks to co*ke Matthews, Gerald Watkins, Jr., and David Wininger for their efforts.

So, on June 20, 2024, my son Sam and I will travel to Birmingham for this phenomenal

celebration of the Negro Leagues and Rickwood Field. I will give thanks to be at Rickwood with my son and for the blessings that allowed me to have so many wonderful times with my Dad at Rickwood.

Did I mention June 20 is my birthday?

See you there.

Thank you Rickwood!

Wade Malone was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama and is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.