The San Francisco Sea Lions’ Heliot Ramos watches the flight of his three-run homer against the St. Louis Stars in the third inning at Rickwood Field in Birmingham the Negro Leagues and Willie Mays Tribute on Thursday June 20, 2024 (AP News photo)

By Morris Phillips

BIRMINGHAM–Nobody got a day off. And nobody got to see all the different bounces in the outfield area either. Well, third base coach Matt Williams did try to show his outfielders what to expect by peppering batting practice balls in off the showy, TV friendly fences. He did that.

Rickwood Field is television. And television is Rickwood Field.

And baseball, for one day, is only slightly more important than spectacle. Forget for a minute that the Giants as well as the Cardinals are fighting for their lives in a crowded, flailing group of National League underachievers.

“Today it feels like it’s a little bit more than baseball,” said Masyn Winn of the Cardinals.

The Giants needed a win, but the Giants organization needed to grieve. Willie Mays has died. It makes for a tough balance, even with a dream-like setting, a national audience, and more in-house historians than you can shake a stick at. Juneteenth, summer solstice and locals beaming with pride round out a very dense mix.

The baseball history in Birmingham begins with Rickwood Field in 1910. The players came soon after. They were black ballplayers with skill and showmanship. Black Birmingham adored those players. Blacks had to envelop those players because white Birmingham wanted to harm them and get them to disappear.

Reggie Jackson came the year after Bull Connor left. He hated the attitudes in the Magic City. He admitted with brutal honesty on FOX’s pre-game show that his temper could have gotten him strung up.

“The nigger can’t stay here. The nigger can’t eat here,” an angry Jackson said of the typical reception he would receive. At the end of his rant about the blatant racism in 1964, Jackson had hto be consoled by Alex Rodriguez on air.

An hour later, Jackson was good again, talking to FOX’s John Smoltz and Joe Davis, and remembering Mays.

“I was honored that he wanted to know who I was.”

Yes, Birmingham is uplifting. It’s also frustrating. And at night, Birmingham is dangerous. Young people here don’t necessarily fall into savory occupations and lifestyles. This keeps things on the edge in 2024.

“Our people are apathetic,” Jeff Drew said.

No Fortune 500 businesses, the prevalence of drugs, a below average school district, and the percentage of single parent homes are all problems for Birmingham.

Businessman Jeff Drew is trying to maintain hope for the future of his town. His family maintained a storefront office in the downtown district beginning in 1950. They had as many as six employees there. But Drew went years without interviewing any black men for a job. And when a particularly callous couple used colorful language around Drew he was disturbed. Soon after, he closed his office and began working from home.

Drew already had issues. Martin Luther King picked Birmingham to give his movement its biggest showdown. Essentially, Martin against Bull Connor and his boys. There were water hoses, embarrassment and pain. Black people suffered and they learned. Drew learned. Martin learned too when he was thrown in jail for “parading without a permit.”

What Drew learned was Martin’s non-peaceful, peaceful ways. When Martin told the Kennedy brothers, “We think you support Bull Connor and segregation,” a line was drawn across the South. Martin would then hang up the phone on the Kennedys. President Kennedy changed his tune after Martin hung up, and provided his full support to the movement.

“He couldn’t beat us,” Drew said of JFK. “He had to join us.”

Great baseball teams did the same in Birmingham. They joined, and people, fans, joined too to support these teams and players. Willie Mays joined the Barons as a teenager. He wasn’t the only name on the marquee. Mays was just getting started, but he already knew who he was.

Tuesday’s minor league game and Thursday’s big league game between the St. Louis Stars and the San Francisco Sea Lions were reminders. They also brought hope that MLB will return soon. Maybe next year.

“I think there should be a three-game series with an off-day,” said Sea Lion Mike Yastrzemski, a visionary for future events at Rickwood Field.

And third base coach Williams just wanted his Sea Lions outfielders prepared. Hitting baseballs pre-game off the colorful, outfield panels displayed the bounces, the nuances.

“I was prepared,” Yastrzemski said.