Rickwood Field, Willie Mays and the balance of celebration and commemoration

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — What do you do when your favorite uncle dies at the family reunion? You cry.

For the 7,866 fans who were in attendance on Tuesday night at Rickwood Field, a Double-A Southern League matchup between the Montgomery Biscuits and Birmingham Barons, everything changed that night. Even though we all knew we wouldn’t see him at MLB’s ode to the Negro Leagues a few days later, because of the pomp and circumstance of the proceedings all week, no one was prepared for the possibility that we would never actually see Willie Howard Mays Jr. ever again.

While the news spread among folks via social media, by the time it was announced over the PA system, the already somewhat mystical energy that exists in the oldest professional ballpark in America, had transformed to a completely surreal haze.

In the very yard that Mays had made his pro debut as a ballplayer in his hometown, we were mourning his death in the middle of a game in which teams were wearing uniforms bearing the likeness of those who graced said stage so many decades ago.

If you closed your eyes to wipe away the tears while the crowd sang the song “Say Hey, Willie Mays” as it played over the PA in the hot Alabama night, you could envision Mays in ebullient stride rounding the bases one last time. When you opened them, you could see the same highlight on the big screen in front of you in right field.

When the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals face off Thursday night, what was supposed to be a celebration is now a commemoration. Are they that far off from each other in spelling or sentiment? Maybe not. But in many hearts, the gulf will be huge.

“It was awful. It was absolutely awful,” Randy Winn, longtime Giants player and current team analyst on NBC Sports Bay Area said after the unveiling of a Mays mural in Birmingham’s Railroad District on Wednesday. “I never prepared for it. You know Willie was in his 90s. Luckily, I was with a group in the Giants traveling party, and the guy who was in charge came over to me, he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have to make an announcement. Willie passed.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ So he made the announcement to the group. And this is a lot of longtime Giants supporters, season ticket holders, people that knew Willie personally.”

To that point, everyone this week around town felt that they knew Willie personally because the light he emanated was so personable. In the Willie Mays Pavilion just past foul territory in left field at the park that night, former players CC Sabathia, Dexter Fowler and Justin Upton just sat there in shock as the MLB Network played a montage of the 24-time All-Star’s life. As a person who uses words for a living, I’m still not sure I have to words to truly describe the feeling in my gut in that moment.

“Cubs two, Giants nothing here at the bottom of the fourth inning at Wrigley Field. And a ball … called a strike. The count is one and one. Strike two, you’re going to have to forgive me here,” play-by-play announcer Dave Flemming said on KNBR, the Giants Radio Network as the team Mays helped revolutionize West Coast baseball with, played at Wrigley Field that night. The hesitation in his voice on the radio broadcast is palpable. A grown man choking over his words from grief was a very relatable feeling.

“I’m having a hard time saying the words, but we found out just a little while ago and the Giants have now made an announcement. Here’s a ground ball to second Estrada throws out Pete Crow-Armstrong. The all-time greatest Giant. No. 24. Willie Mays has passed away today at the age of 93. Right as we get ready to head to his hometown and honor great Willie Mays,” he stammered through audible tears. “We have to say goodbye.”

Segregation doesn’t define Birmingham but it certainly still outlines a lot of its existence. There was a time that the city was bigger than Atlanta. By a lot. 

“Birmingham used to be twice as big as Atlanta. Birmingham, Alabama, was the bigger of the two cities in the early 1940s and ’50s because of steel. Because of World War II, we was cranking out all the tank metal, so you had to run with us,” comedian and Birmingham native Roy Wood Jr. told me on Monday for ESPN Daily. “So much so that Delta Airlines said, ‘Hey, we would love to build an airline terminal here in Birmingham and make Birmingham the hub of the travel … But if you don’t mind, we really need the airline terminal to be integrated. Do you mind, Mr. Bull Connor, if we just have Blacks and whites together at the airport?’ and Bull Connor was like: ‘GET THE DOGS!’ ”

It was a joke in the context of delivery, but very real in the context of current effect. Around the corner from WBHM, the adorable Alabama public radio station, is the UAB Blazers baseball/softball complex, which is genuinely one of the nicest I’ve ever seen in the country. Meanwhile, there are fewer public ballfields than there are public high schools in Birmingham.

Meaning there are still somewhat obvious signs of the differences. Wednesday, at the Southern Negro League Museum, the MLB-MLBPA Youth Development Foundation announced a $500,000 grant to the Negro Leagues Family Alliance. Short version: The big leagues were handing out some cash to families who deserved it and, in some cases, separately had to resort to effectively begging for some numeration for their efforts, never mind their dignity.

That affair was a classy one, with champagne, delicious shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, hors d’oeuvres and a lovely Top 100 hits instrumental playlist by the Smooth Jazz All-Stars. Listening to a saxophone riff of Rihanna’s “Work” while reading displays about how brothas had to make it out of the steel mill baseball league first — after working all day to even have a chance at the Negro Leagues, let alone the majors — is quite an experience.

“Last night when I got the news that Willie Mays passed, similar to all of you, I was saddened,” Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin said from the podium to a packed house that included many family members of Negro Leaguers. “When I woke up this morning, I had a different thought. And the thought is that there is no better way. There is no better way to celebrate in the day designated to celebrate Black excellence. If you paid attention to the former president [Barack Obama] who gave Willie Mays the highest honor civilian you could give, he said that without Willie Mays, he would not have made history in the White House. And think it’s fair to echo those sentiments and simply say that Willie Mays brought to our world and our country massive impact and change. With one bat he knocked down so many walls.”

To be quite honest, until that point, I had completely forgotten that it was Juneteenth.

There was a churchlike energy at the function that could not and would not be ignored. When MLBPA executive director Tony Clark got to the dais, the “visiting pastor” vibes were off the charts. He warned that he might go long and got very personal very quickly. He pointed out that this was his first visit to the space, and it reminded him of his first time at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where he spent four-fifths of his time there looking at the Negro League exhibits.

“If I didn’t know my history, I wouldn’t know who I am. Can I get an amen?” he preached. “All of us being here is the right place at the right time.”

The doors of the church were open, and the crowd said, “amen.”

Meanwhile, the recognition of Negro Leagues statistics was top of mind and discussed by many in terms of validation regarding more things than numbers. The man who will never get the full credit he deserves was in the building, just taking in the proceedings. You might recall his work on the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee, which was honored that day, too. As humble as anyone could ever be, baseball historian and Negro Leagues expert Larry Lester had to compose himself a bit, with the weight of everything that had happened in the last month, never mind the last two days.

“I am exhausted. Tired. But appreciative of all the efforts of Major League Baseball,” Lester said, wearing a script red Kansas City Monarchs hat. “This means a lot to me. I mean, I’ve been researching baseball since I was a kid, for more than 50 years. And I didn’t do it for recognition. I never needed anybody’s acceptance. But it just brings joy to my heart that a lot of these fellas — that I spend time in their living room and breaking bread with them — that they’re finally being recognized for who they really are. I’m a little bit sentimental. You know, I grew up with Satchel Paige’s kids and Buck O’Neil’s wife was my grade school teacher. I did this because I really love baseball.”

Beyond that, he reminded me that for all the staggering numbers Mays put up, something as random, somewhat convoluted and structural as stadium design probably kept him from even greater statistical heights. The Polo Grounds in New York City wasn’t just a cool name. It was actually that and the dimensions are famously absurd.

Left field: 279 feet. Left center: 450 feet. Center field: 483 feet. Right center: 449 feet. Right field: 258 feet. If you can’t visualize that, it’s like basically shoving a baseball diamond into a vertical rectangle and saying, “the hell with it, it works.”

Meanwhile, when the Giants moved to Candlestick Park in San Francisco after playing a season at Seals Stadium, the wind there was the stuff of legend. You can’t really add weather to math and come up with any reasonable extrapolation other than it made it a lot harder to hit home runs.

“I had to turn it off. I just couldn’t handle it,” Lester said, referring to the news of Mays’ death. “He’s such an iconic figure. I don’t know how you can underrate his greatness. But I think in some ways we have, because [Mays] made it through very tough ballparks, Candlestick and the Polo Grounds. So, if his stats were put in with ballpark factor, he would be greater. Six-hundred sixty-six home runs does not do him justice.”

Word of advice: If you’re playing in a celebrity softball game, in your lone at-bat, don’t hit a frozen rope in the direction of a pro athlete who also happened to play on the diamond in college at one of the premier programs in the country. Because you will think you’ve got potentially a hustle double, and you will look up at the replay board to wonder how that play actually happened, and you will head back to the dugout and ask the umpire how did they catch that. And without saying a word, their face will read: pretty easily.

Jameis Winston, I will never forgive you.

In all seriousness, Rickwood Field hosted the celebrity “Fam Jam” softball game Wednesday night, an event complete with bands, a cookout and a Metro Boomin concert following the fun, and it was a blast.

A year ago, standing on the field hours before the announcement that MLB would be refurbishing the surface and playing an actual regular-season game there, Sabathia said to me: “I want to play a softball game here.” There were only about a dozen or so other people even in the park at that moment of the morning and it was easy to tell from his gaze how he was visualizing it.

Less than a year later, it happened. Former players Derek Jeter and Barry Bonds were honorary captains at the plate and Ruben Studdard sang them folks’ favorite song, after an historically Black university choir sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The rules and lineups were, let’s just say, fluid, but did have little quirks, like in the second inning when basket catches were required in homage to Mays. For all the frivolity and ridiculousness of the affair, one thing was most consistent: the umpires.

“I am a fan of the Negro Leagues. And I did know that it existed. I had never been here before,” Natola Hawthorne, one of two Black female umpires working the game, said. “It was an opportunity to be a part of the history of Rickwood. Knowing that Willie Mays played here, then being a Black umpire, it was just the whole nostalgia of the weekend that they were putting together.”

Whoever in the league office made the decision to put two Black women in charge of officiating a bunch of large and loudmouth human beings playing a kids’ game needs a raise. For all the ridiculous antics and competitive nature of the evening, one thing that was clear was that we were NOT finna cut up and embarrass folks in front of company, so to speak. And the energy they brought made everyone feel like everything was going to be OK.

“You know, you don’t really have your parameters yet. Can I talk to you guys? Do I just have to stay professional? All of that was going through my mind,” Hawthorne explained with a laugh Thursday. “So when you guys were like asking me questions. Yes, I can answer. But do I smile? It’s just, it was a lot. But you know what? In that moment, I was like, ‘Look, I just have to be me and do what I know how to do and enjoy myself.’ ”

Speaking of barrier breakers, Hawthorne is one herself, in many ways. She went to the MLB pro umpire school a few years back and didn’t get hired, but was still in the pipeline, so when this came up, she said yes. A former football referee, she got a wild hair to try baseball after reffing youth games at Buck Godfrey Stadium, right next door to Georgia State’s baseball facility in Atlanta.

“I’m on the football field like, ‘Yo, y’all. I belong over there. Right?’ And they’re like, ‘What do you mean over there? That’s a baseball field,’ ” she explained, sort of noting the absurdity of the idea that her colleagues expressed. “Like, I think I belong over there. And they’re like, ‘Right now you do this football game. So we’re gonna focus on this football game, and then we’ll talk about over there, because that’s foolish.’ So that’s when I went searching like for the Little League, and it just went from there.”

Her mentor, Kedrin Wright, put the idea in her head that she was going to be the first Black female MLB umpire and they’ve put in the work to try to get her there. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been fulfilling, and clearly with some perks.

“I believe the dynamic. Courtney [Clements] and I being there, changed the atmosphere of how you all played the game. I think it would have been a little more stoic and straight, not as fun flowing, if others were out there.”

She’s absolutely right. Just as important, the day after we were forced to come to terms with the thing none of us ever wanted to fully believe could happen in the death of Say Hey Kid, there was genuine fun on that field — the kind of fun that he brought to the game, the kind of fun that was so infectious that his peers at the highest level could not ignore it.

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On the wall at the Southern Negro League Museum, there’s a large quote that reads: “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.” That’s from Hall of Famer Ted Williams.

In 2024, we lost the 24-time All-Star who won 12 gold gloves and two MVPs the day before we were to give him the kind of flowers he truly deserved. On this day it’s obvious, the All-Star Game should be named after Willie Mays.

Say, hey, that’s a good idea.