"Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., lays claim to being the oldest intact and functioning professional baseball field. Inspired by Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and Shibe Park in Philadelphia, it was built in 1910, two years before the next longest surviving park, Fenway Park. It housed Birmingham-based minor league teams full-time until 1987, and now is the home to the Rickwood Classic, a yearly game pitting the Birmingham Barons against one of their rivals in throwback uniforms. It also hosts many college, high school and amateur games every year. It has a colorful history. Steel executive Rick Woodward, inspired and assisted by Connie Mack’s Shibe Park in Philadelphia, built what was then a state-of the-art concrete and steel ballpark to house his fledging minor league team, the Birmingham Barons. It also hosted a well-respected Negro league franchise, the Birmingham Black Barons. Both became successful franchises in their respective leagues. Allen Barra’s Rickwood Field: a Century in America’s Oldest Ballpark has the look on the cover as being an extended valentine to the old baseball park, near which the author grew up."
Hardball Times
"Those fortunate fans who attended Opening Day on August 18, 1910 could not have had the slightest inkling that their brand new stadium would one day be the oldest active professional ballpark in America. Nor could they have possibly imagined how dramatically baseball would transform itself over the course of a century. Back then there were no high-powered agents, no steroids dominating the sports headlines, no gleaming, billion-dollar stadiums with corporate sky boxes that lit up the neon sky. There was only the wood and the raw hide, the mitt and the cap, and the game as it was played a few miles from downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Allen Barra has journeyed to his native Alabama to capture the glories of a century of baseball lore. ..."
amazon: Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark
No comments:
Post a Comment