Major League Baseball is preparing for Willie Mays to attend the Rickwood Field game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals — a matchup paying tribute to the 92-year-old, Alabama-born Hall of Famer, the league’s commissioner said Thursday.
During an Opening Day appearance on MLB Network’s “High Heat” on Thursday afternoon, Commissioner Rob Manfred told Chris “Mad Dog” Russo that “the plan” is for Mays, who was born in an Alabama town that no longer exists, to attend the game.
“I hope so, I hope that his health will allow it,” Manfred said. “The plan is, yes, and I hope that he’s healthy enough to do it.”
Mays was born in Westfield in 1931. Westfield is now an unincorporated area between Pleasant Grove and Fairfield, west of Interstate 20 in Jefferson County.
His baseball journey started in Birmingham, and Major League Baseball will honor the Say Hey Kid’s roots with “MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues,” a National League regular-season game between the Giants and Cardinals on June 20 at the venerable ballpark.
Prior to his legendary 22-year career with the New York/San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, Mays was an outfielder for the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons.
In 1948, he was part of the Barons team that won the Negro American League pennant.
Birmingham then lost in the Negro World Series to the Homestead Grays in five games, falling 10-6 in 10 innings in Game 5 on Oct. 5, 1948, at Rickwood Field.
Manfred said he believes the game at Birmingham’s legendary ballpark “is going to be a highlight of the year” for the league.
“I think there’s a great opportunity theme surrounding it. I’d love the idea of taking our game to places we have not been, where we don’t play regularly, and I particularly like it when there’s some historic significance to it. And Rickwood – that’s certainly the case,” he told Russo.
“I also think it’s a great opportunity for us to celebrate one of the greatest players in the game.”
