Major League Baseball (MLB) has announced they will stage a Negro Leagues tribute game at the famous Rickwood Field stadium in Birmingham, Alabama.
On June 20, 2024, the St. Louis Cardinals will face off against the San Francisco Giants in historic fashion, ESPN reported. The game will honor Willie Mays, former Birmingham Black Barons and San Fransisco Giants player, and a living legend. The Cardinals will be the home team and the Giants will be the away team. The game will be broadcast nationally on Fox after 7 p.m. ET.
Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States and former home of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, will host a regular season game between the @Cardinals and @SFGiants on June 20, 2024. pic.twitter.com/f3YmYq7Y2T
— MLB (@MLB) June 20, 2023
The Rickwood Field stadium is the oldest ballpark in America and a National Historic Site, according to ESPN. Opened in 1910, it was home to the Birmingham Black Barons from 1924 to 1960, a team belonging to the Negro American League. Mays played for the Barons from 1948 to 1950.
Mays signed with the New York Giants in 1951, winning the National League pennant as well as being awarded National League Rookie of the Year. Mays won the World Series with the Giants in 1954 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979, according to The Mercury News.
The MLB says the game will take place around Juneteenth, a day to acknowledge the emancipation of slaves in Texas in 1865, per the Associated Press. The game will be a celebration of both Mays’ career and the Negro Leagues of the past. (RELATED: What’s Going On Here? World Series Hero David Freese Bizarrely Declines To Be In St. Louis Cardinals Hall Of Fame)
The Rickwood Field ballpark holds up to 10,800 fans.
“It’s tremendous that we get to celebrate the Negro League and the life of Willie Mays. To have it come here is a dream come true,” Executive Director of the Friends of Rickwood Field Gerald Watkins told the Daily Caller in a statement. “I’m as happy as someone can be.”