The renovation of historic Rickwood Field for the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals ‘ regular season game on Thursday night came from a partnership between Major League Baseball, the MLB Players Association, and the City of Birmingham, which totaled more than$ 4.5 million.
Birmingham paid$ 4.5 million to upgrade the city-owned center, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. According to the PA’s senior producer Tony Clark and Dan Halem, the deputy director under Rob Manfred, MLF paid unknown, expensive overages to make the one-time event happen.
There are no upcoming events scheduled for Rickwood on the existing plan.
Willie Mays, who started his professional career below at age 17 while playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, was the subject of extensive planning for the long-awaited activity. When Mays passed away unexpectedly at 93 on Tuesday, that became a ballad.

Former MLB great Albert Pujols said on Wednesday,” It was a surprise when we heard Willie died,” prior to a brand ball game on the 120, 000-square-foot playing field of transplanted sparkling clean Bermuda grass. However, considering it since next, this is now the best way to recognize him as the person he was and what he meant to this activity.
Mays, a Birmingham local, signed his first two- quarter master lease for$ 250 to perform for the Lords on July 4, 1948. He left the New York Giants for great on May 25, 1951, and he immediately began a 23-year Hall of Fame career that included visits to San Francisco before moving back to New York to complete his MLB job.
Mays agreed to a one-year deal worth$ 7,500 to perform at the Polo Grounds. The most he ever made was$ 165, 000, in both 1972 and 1973, the final two years of his career. ( That amount would be worth nearly$ 1.17 million today. ) Mays ‘ career totaled$ 1.8 million, or$ 1.8 million.
Speed back to 2024. Shohei Ohtani signed a 10- season,$ 700 million deal this past season with the Dodgers —$ 70 million a season—with$ 680 million of it deferred.
That raises the question: Had Mays played in this time, what would he have been fair?
” That’s thoughts- boggling to me”, CC Sabathia, the original pitcher even in area for the Celebrity Softball Game, said.
Recent people who pushed for the development of events like Thursday’s game were concerned about the pay distance and keeping the recollection of the struggles that Negro Leaguers endured.
The right to play a sport like this was memorialized under the heading” Special Events” when both sides hammer out the latest Basic Agreement during the shutdown of 2022.
” It’s important to us to make sure the history was n’t lost”, Clark said in an interview. That people understand that the players who played these were prohibited from playing in the major leagues despite also achieving their potential.

With the consent of the federation, “up to four set per tournament time may be scheduled at a location other than a Major League or Minor League rough” according to the Basic Agreement.
There’s one big requirement:” The site of the Special Event may have a field, dugouts, and clubhouses that conform to Major League standards, and the Players Association shall have the right to check the facilities before the game, consistent with previous practice”.
The idea for this game was great in theory—and a long road to get here in reality.
Rickwood Field, opened in 1910, is the oldest pro ballpark in North America, but has n’t been regularly used since 1988. It seriously deteriorated with a leaky roof, no lighting, a faulty electrical system, no drainage for the ballfield, few serviceable restrooms, and about 8, 000 usable seats. Because there were so many different levels of turf on the field, bulldozers had to be hired to get rid of a lot of the dirt.
Nowhere was suitable for a special occasion, let alone a minor league game.
With its grant, the city responded by stepping up, and MLB appointed ballpark designer Janet Marie Smith and field expert Murray Cook to address the various issues.
Cook described the playing field as a rec field, and the dugouts were cramped, hardly up to Major League standards. The clubs have been using blowup tents this week to dress and unwind from the heat, and the original clubhouses have been transformed into museums.
The light standards that were installed in 1936 hang over the field, but had no electricity. Cook ordered his employees to remove the lamp so that foul balls would n’t strike the players and fans below.
MLB installed its own lighting system on flatbed trucks, which were then craned into the sky for the three days of activities. They will go away when the event ends, leaving Rickwood lightless. The video board will also hover over the right field fence. However, the new field and the drainage system will remain.
No matter. The Double- A Barons—a Chicago White Sox affiliate—have made their home downtown in modern Regions Field since 2013. In connection with the event, they played a game here on Tuesday night against the Montgomery Biscuits, which they lost 6-5. But they’re not coming back anytime soon.
There’s no parking, and streets in the area have been closed for security reasons, limiting access. Fans, ballpark staff, and the media are being asked to park at Legion Field, an old football stadium, a half-mile away, and travel by shuttle buses to Rickwood.
Those were only some of issues. The big challenge, Cook said, was to maintain the “magic and history of the venue”.
Therefore, a lot of money was put toward a one-time event to honor the Negro Leagues and those players who could not play in the MLB due to its segregationist rules before 1947, when Jackie Robinson finally broke the color barrier.
It’s part of a whole. Numerous of the Negro Leaguers ‘ stats from before 1948 have been recorded in MLB’s official records, and they have been inducted into the National Hall of Fame.
” Yes, being in an old ballpark and the nostalgia connected with it is fantastic”, Clark said. All of it is important, but I find it most inspiring to ensure that history and those stories are kept alive and that everyone hears it as a result of these games being played.