The Day After Fathers' Day

When I look back on my childhood and adolescence, there is one constant: baseball. The only significant man in my youth, my grandfather, told me stories about the baseball players he had seen as younger man, such as Dizzy Dean. And one of the places we went together was Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Class AA Birmingham Barons played. This was back when major league baseball wasn't so watered down and also a time when many, many cities and towns supported a minor league team, Class AAA down to Class D. Rickwood Field, where I spent so many happy hours, is the oldest baseball stadium in the United States, opening in 1912, days before Wrigley Field in Chicago.

There were only 16 major league teams then, so few of the thousands of minor leaguers could ever hope to spend time in the majors. But we pulled for our minor league players because they were our own, and the Birmingham Barons usually fielded a respectable team. They were in the Southern Association with the New Orleans Pelicans, the Little Rock Travelers, the Memphis Chicks, the Atlanta Crackers, the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Nashville Vols, and the Mobile Bears. The pennant winner played the Texas League pennant winner in a mini-World Series each year.

Going to Rickwood Field with my grandfather is one of my fondest childhood memories. He and I went to the Southern League All-Star game one year, and I saw Jim Lemon hit 4 home runs and barely miss a 5th. Lemon, of course, made it to the major leagues and stayed for a while. Also at Rickwood, in later years, I got autographs from Hank Aaron, Andy Pafko, Eddie Matthews, and Mickey Mantle. Mickey and the Yankees were coming off the field after an exhibition game with the Barons, and I reached through a metal fence and asked for his autograph. He just grumbled. Then Yogi Berra said, "Aw, come on, Mick, give the kid your autograph." And he did. Mickey wasn't much more than a kid himself then. How I wish I had all those autographed scorecards that I kept for years.

Jim Lemon wasn't the only future big leaguer I saw in Class AA baseball on his way up to "the bigs." There was also Bill Virdon, who later played for and managed the St. Louis Cardinals. There, too, was Gus Triandos, who played for the Yankees after his stint in Birmingham. But the last great player I saw during his minor league days was Reggie Jackson. The Barons were associated with various major league clubs during those years, a farm team of the big team. And I saw many of these wonderful players because several major league teams would, upon breaking camp after Spring Training in Florida (they all went to Florida then), play exhibitions with various minor league teams on their way north to their major league home cities. I saw a Baron pitcher strike out Ted Williams twice in one of these exhibitions. If that pitcher is still alive, I'll bet he's telling his grandchildren about it even now. And even striking out, Ted Williams had the sweetest swing I ever saw, before or since.

In those days, I listened to Barons' games on the radio. On a good night for the team, I can still hear the announcer saying when the bases were loaded, that they were F. O. B., Full of Barons. Road games were also broadcast but with a twist. The announcer wasn't actually with the team! He was calling the game in a Birmingham studio from a ticker tape that tap-tap-tapped each play as it happened. His obvious embellishments made it seem almost as if he were there, but our love for baseball was such that we didn't really care. My love for baseball carried into my teen years, and I still have a copy of the 1954 Mutual Baseball Almanac that I ordered through the mail. It cost a dollar, and it's in pristine condition still. Mutual Radio carried the Game of the Week. Television broadcasts were quite rare, though the World Series was televised.

One last, very important thing. As kids, most of us didn't join any formal leagues. We just got a team together and challenged another group of kids. We played baseball for pure fun. There were few, if any, adults around to mess things up. If we won, fine. If we lost, we still got on our bikes and pedaled to the nearest store for a cold drink (that's what we called soda pop back then) to take the edge off the hot Alabama summer.

It's been said that it was a more innocent time. I think it was for most of us. And baseball was a part of my innocence and my life with my sweet grandfather. What more could a kid ask for?

An important social footnote should be added to this near idyllic description of my life growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. It wasn't an innocent time for everybody. Until I was an adult, there were never any black faces in the stands at Rickwood Field when the Barons were playing. There was another team back then, the Birmingham Black Barons, a team that Willie Mays played for on his way up. He's from a little town, Fairfield, Alabama, where the steel mills roared and belched, not far from where I lived. Further, in the early sixties, as blacks demanded their freedom with marches and demonstrations in Birmingham, there was no baseball at Rickwood. The locals thought it better to shut down than to risk that they might have to attend games with blacks. Fortunately for everybody, Rickwood Field opened up again, and it was after the re-opening that I saw Reggie Jackson play for the Barons. But today Rickwood is empty to professional baseball. The new stadium is located in Hoover, Alabama, across Red Mountain, in a white neighborhood. The area around Rickwood Field is now peopled by black folks.