MLB to honour Willie Mays at Negro Leagues tribute game next June
NEW YORK — Major League Baseball will stage a Negro Leagues tribute sport at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 20, 2024, between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.
The 10,800-seat stadium, opened in 1910, is the oldest skilled ballpark within the U.S. and a National Historic Site. The stadium was house to the Birmingham Black Barons from 1924-60.
The sport will honour Hall of Famer Willie Mays, a Birmingham native who started his skilled profession with the staff in 1948.
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MLB stated Tuesday it’s staging the sport across the Juneteenth vacation, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in Texas in 1865. There additionally might be a Double-A sport on the ballpark between the Birmingham Barons and Montgomery Biscuits of the Southern League on June 18.
St. Louis would be the house staff for the June 20 sport, scheduled to begin shortly after 7 p.m. EDT and to be televised nationally on Fox. Period uniforms might be used referring to the Negro Leagues historical past of San Francisco and St. Louis.
“The legacy of the Negro Leagues and its greatest living player, Willie Mays, is one of excellence and perseverance,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred stated in a press release. “We look forward to sharing the stories of the Negro Leagues throughout this event next year.”
Mays, 92, is mostly thought-about baseball’s best dwelling participant. After enjoying with Birmingham, he signed with the New York Giants and was voted the 1951 National League Rookie of the Year because the Giants gained the NL pennant.
A World Series champion with the Giants in 1954, Mays was a 24-time All-Star, tied with Stan Musial for second-most behind Hank Aaron’s 25. Mays gained the 1954 main league batting title and was voted NL MVP in 1954 and 1965.
“I can’t believe it. I never thought I’d see in my lifetime a Major League Baseball game being played on the very field where I played baseball as a teenager,” Mays stated in a press release. “It has been 75 years since I played for the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Field, and to learn that my Giants and the Cardinals will play a game there and honour the legacy of the Negro Leagues and all those who came before them is really emotional for me. We can’t forget what got us here and that was the Negro Leagues for so many of us.”
MLB will work with the City of Birmingham and Friends of Rickwood to renovate the ballpark, the house of the minor league Barons from 1910-1961, 1964-65, 1981-87. The Barons have performed since 2013 at Regions Field, about 3 miles away, and shift one sport yearly to Rickwood in a tribute to the staff’s historical past.
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