Baseball's Negro Leagues to be honored in Alabama at the nation's oldest professional ballpark

Caption

"Rickwood: The Soul of Birmingham" shares the story of the nation's oldest professional ballpark and its role in American history.

As part of Juneteenth celebrations this week, Major League Baseball is honoring the Negro Leagues — African American professional baseball teams of the 1920s to 1940s — with several games at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., former home of the Black Barons. Built in 1910, it’s the oldest professional baseball field in the country, and some call it a place that represented Black pride. Michael Fountain is the executive producer of the documentary Rickwood: The Soul of Birmingham. He spoke with GPB’s Peter Biello. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Peter Biello: In your film, you have a narrator speak as the voice of Rickwood Field, and it describes itself in this way:

"I am in a working-class southern community that has allowed me to be the center of change. People whose beliefs in the American dream are no different from anyone else's. This community continues to embrace me for what I am: American history. American history."

Peter Biello: So, Michael Fountain, this field has meant a lot to a lot of people over the years. I wanted to ask you, can you tell us about your interest in Rickwood Field?

Michael Fountain: I had not heard about the field, its traditions, its very rich history. But my first visit there, last October, I believe, sitting in the stands behind home plate and looking out — it's remarkable. I mean, you actually feel what it was like in the early 1900s. You feel the Negro League ballplayers, you feel the issues of segregation. You feel the essence of Rickwood and what it meant to the city. It's amazing. It transports you back in time.

Peter Biello: What did Rickwood Field, and the ball games played there mean to the people of Birmingham during Jim Crow segregation?

Michael Fountain: For those nine innings that the Birmingham Black Barons were playing, it was an escape from the rigors of everyday life, especially for the Black community. They knew there was a safe haven at least for nine innings. After nine innings, unfortunately, they went back to their daily rigors of just trying to survive as a Black person in the Deep South. But during those nine innings, it was a cause for celebration.

Peter Biello: You're essentially quoting Roy Wood Jr, who you featured in your film. He's a comedian and an actor who played high school baseball at Rickwood Field. So not exclusively a field for the Negro Leagues. It had other purposes as well.

Michael Fountain: It still has other purposes. It hosted the Birmingham White Barons or the Birmingham Barons, which was the all-white club. It still, today, hosts high school events, high school baseball games. Local college teams played —I believe there's Mills College [that] used it as their home field in addition to some other local teams. It's used for charity events and the big [Major League Baseball] game this week. It's a chance for the world to see Rickwood and understand how special it is.

Peter Biello: Back when it was an "escape" for Black people to escape the pain of segregation, there were signs of segregation inside the ballpark. There are people in your film who make note of the chicken-wire fence that divided the white sections from the Black sections, and what was surprising to me was that Bull Connor was the public address announcer. He was the head of police in Birmingham who turned fire hoses on Black citizens who protested racial segregation. How do you make sense of those two things? The fact that it was both an escape, but there were also signs of the segregation that existed throughout the south inside Rickwood?

Michael Fountain: I think that speaks to the desperation of people just wanting to be treated as normal, as fairly as they could be. And the fact that they got a chance to go to a ballpark, which wasn't always open to them. It was a gathering. It was it was a place to be, a place to be seen.

Peter Biello: This week, Rickwood's going to play host to a Major League baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants. This is the marquee event. There are things happening all this week. The field's getting a huge makeover for this week's games. New grass padded out fields, new lights, a dugout renovation. You spoke with former players from the Negro Leagues. I wonder if you spoke to them about what it means to have the Negro Leagues recognized in this way, with a Major League Baseball game played at Rickwood?

Michael Fountain: It means the opportunity to be remembered. And it means that Rickwood is going to be around for 100 more years with these improvements that are being made. But for the players themselves, it is a chance for the stories to be told, for them to be recognized. Several of them won't be at the game yet. I think that Rickwood will be a location that they can do something very special with. I'm excited to see it.

You can view “Rickwood: The Soul of Birmingham” by downloading the free Very Local App.