Here’s why Rickwood Field is so important to Willie Mays’ legacy and baseball's backstory

Willie Mays’ death earlier this week shook up the baseball world, breaking the hearts of some of the game’s all-time titans.

A giant of the game in every sense of the word, Mays was arguably the greatest ball player ever, and his impact on the sport itself, while tremendous, extended well beyond the parameters of a bog-standard baseball diamond.

On Thursday, the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will play a special regular-season game at the legendary Rickwood Field, the oldest baseball stadium in the United States. The evening and its planned celebrations will take on a little bit more of a somber note in the wake of Mays’ death.

Here’s why Rickwood Field was so important to Mays and the history of baseball.

Why Rickwood Field is so special

Having been open since 1910, no baseball stadium likely holds as much influence and gravitas as Rickwood Field. In the early parts of the 20th century, the Birmingham Barons of the Negro Leagues played on the field. They later changed their name to the Birmingham Black Barons and remained as such from 1924 to 1960.

Even when the Negro Leagues disbanded in 1948 after MLB integrated Black players, Rickwood Field remained an essential fixture in Birmingham and the greater baseball community. It is officially part of the National Register of Historic Places.

Some of the most famous Black players in baseball history have played at Rickwood Field during intermittent stints with the Black Barons. With Mays obviously included, the list notably also features:

• Jackie Robinson
• Satchel Paige
• Josh Gibson
• Ernie Banks
• Hank Aaron

Needless to say, these are genuinely some of the biggest heavy-hitters baseball has ever seen.

Why is MLB having a game at Rickwood Field?

The answer is simple. Given the importance of the Negro Leagues to baseball’s history, growth, and the black mark of segregation, MLB has started embracing its imprint much more, most recently announcing plans to incorporate Negro Leagues statistics into the official MLB record books.

Before his death, Mays was set to be honored individually on Thursday night. The Alabama native played a season at Rickwood Field with the Black Barons when he was 17 years old before officially jumping to the MLB, where he spent the majority of his career with the Giants.

Shortly before his death, Mays issued a formal statement that he would unfortunately not be in attendance on Thursday:

“I wish I could come out to Rickwood Field this week to be with you all and enjoy that field with my friends. Rickwood’s been part of my life for all of my life. Since I was a kid. It was just ‘around the corner there’ from Fairfield [the town where Mays went to high school], and it felt like it had been there forever. Like a church. The first big thing I ever put my mind to was to play at Rickwood Field. It wasn’t a dream. It was something I was going to do. I was going to work hard to be one of the Birmingham Black Barons and play ball at Rickwood Field. That’s what I did. It was my start. My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was IT — everything I wanted.”

A pregame ceremony will pay tribute to the baseball icon in the wake of his death. The Giants and Cardinals will wear unique uniforms representative of Negro Leagues teams from San Francisco and St. Louis to commemorate the occasion.