Over the course of its 100-plus-year history, Rickwood Field has seen a lot.
Once the home of the Minor Leagues’ Birmingham Barons and the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons, the oldest ballpark in the country has also hosted college football games, high school and college baseball games, and has even been the site of several major motion pictures.
But until April 16, 2022, Rickwood hadn’t seen anything like this.
The Savannah Bananas, the exhibition team turned viral sensation for their unique brand of baseball, made a stop in Birmingham, Ala., on their five-city “world tour,” playing in front of a sold-out crowd of more than 10,000 fans. It was the largest crowd the Bananas, who regularly sell out their 4,000-seat capacity Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Ga., had attracted up to that point.
Jake Peavy -- two-time World Series champion, three-time All-Star and National League Cy Young Award winner -- made an appearance for the Bananas, pitching an inning of relief at the age of 40. The Mobile, Ala., native didn’t bust a move or show off his vocals, but he did join in on the fun by whipping out his 2012 American League Gold Glove and using it on the mound.
“What a wonderful night that transpired,” said Peavy in a recent phone interview. “To see that place jammed full, I mean completely sold out to the point where you couldn’t get another ticket, with energy in it like there was back in the heyday of when the Black Barons were rolling. You hear these stories of, ‘We were running from church to that ballpark to get a good seat. We might be leaving early to try to get a good seat.’
“So, it felt like that again. The Bananas bring amazing energy and big energy and some of the playfulness that I know the Negro Leagues had involved in the sport. … It’s hallowed ground, and I got to go there and stand where my heroes stood and dig in the dirt and just feel their presence and just try to reverence that.”
Satchel Paige, a fellow Mobile native, was one of those heroes. The Hall of Fame pitcher who began his professional baseball career with the Black Barons at the age of 20, Paige went 36-17 with a 2.93 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP in 491 innings from 1927-30.
“Through the Negro Leagues, I don’t know if we had a more decorated or more fun player to watch than Satchel Paige,” Peavy said. “He came right up through that field. That was his home mound. What I consider to be one of the best pitchers, if not the greatest pitcher of all time, did his thing right there.
“It was as surreal as it could possibly be. … When you do something that a great did before you that you have such reverence for and you get to stand in the same place, it’s like you have this small connection with that person.”
It’s why Peavy was open to suiting up again after his 15-year MLB career came to an end in 2016. Peavy had become friends with Bananas owner Jesse Cole and convinced him to stage their one-city “world tour” at Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile, where they played their first two games outside of Savannah in March 2021 in front of a combined crowd of 7,000 fans (with seating capped in accordance with pandemic-era social distancing protocols). The ballpark, which is named after another Mobile native and MLB great and is located just off Satchel Paige Drive, has been vacant since its Double-A team relocated after the 2019 season and is facing the possibility of being torn down.
Peavy credited the Friends of Rickwood for ensuring that Rickwood Field isn’t in a similar position. Since 1992, the nonprofit organization has cared for the park, which is owned by the city of Birmingham, working to preserve its history and restore it to its former glory. Due to those efforts, the Bananas -- who have this year played in front of sold-out crowds at MLB stadiums like Houston’s Minute Maid Park and Boston’s Fenway Park -- held the finale of their 2022 tour at Rickwood. And Peavy was able to live out a long-held dream.
“Man, what a job done by the people of Birmingham in and around the Friends of Rickwood to preserve this crown jewel so we can even get to have this experience and tell its story,” he said.
The next chapter of that story will be written this week, when the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals play in the MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues game Thursday night. Peavy, who won the World Series with the Giants in 2014, will be there watching, knowing firsthand the value the experience will hold for them.
“I don’t think that I have to tell any of them what this means or what to expect,” he said. “As we’ve gotten closer and closer, these two teams, they have some old-school people around them that are making sure everybody reverences and understands where we’re going and what we’re doing.
“It’s a feeling. When you step on the grounds, you can channel that feeling of, ‘Hey, some cool stuff happened here, and there are some ghosts hanging out.’ There aren’t a whole lot of man-made things that make us feel like that in the world. So I think when these boys get there and get to step on that…”
They’ll feel what he did that April night in Birmingham.