The week-long series of programs and events in Birmingham—the Willie Mays documentary, youth baseball, a celebrity softball game, and the first MLB regular season game played at Rickwood Field—were all in tribute to the Negro Leagues.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jordan Hicks and San Francisco shortstop Masyn Winn were the only U.S.-born Black players, along with Giants IF/OF LaMonte Wade Jr., currently on the injured list, were on the roster of both clubs.
Hicks and Winn talked to the MSR about the significance of playing on the same field that was once full of Black players, but now only 6% of today’s Major Leaguers are Black.
“Walking around and seeing all the history… I’m just very blessed to be in a position and be able to represent,” said Hicks. “One of my biggest inspirations was Jackie Robinson. I wouldn’t be here without all the sacrifices that have been made.”
Added Winn, “There’s not a lot of brothers [in] baseball. It’s still the fact that there’s not a lot of Blacks in baseball.”
“The Negro Leagues deserve the love, adoration and preservation,” tweeted Andscape’s Justin Tinsley. “But it’s America’s fault that they even have to exist in the first place. It’s an unfathomable level of trauma in this history that’s a microcosm of Black life in America.”
Black baseball and Birmingham “are indelibly linked,” Barry McNealy told me while we walked through the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) last Thursday morning, June 20. The Institute, founded in 1992, is home to an expansive archive of documents, including nearly 500 recorded oral histories from the Civil Rights Movement, and exhibits such as the actual jail cell that held the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., where he wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
McNealy is BCRI’s history expert. “I want the visitor to come away with the idea that what took place in Birmingham was not inevitable,” he explained. “People have to sacrifice for that. But what allowed them to make that sacrifice was the faith that the leaders of this movement had.
“They had no reason to believe that they could topple Bull Connor. He had been in power since 1937. He crushed movement after movement. There was no real tangible evidence that they could just desegregate the most segregated city in the United States of America.”
Added McNealy, “A part of our exhibit deals with the Negro Leagues, and we are seeing many more people come in” due to last week’s MLB game at Rickwood Field, he said. “If people come to the city in search of this history, we like to be the doorway for them to come in and really experience that.”
Last week, a new history was also made—the Barnstorm Birmingham celebrity softball game and the San Francisco-St. Louis MLB game both had all-Black umpires.
“We are actually paving the way tonight,” said Natoya Hawthorne of Atlanta, one of the four Black female umpires who worked last Wednesday’s celebrity game. Courtney Clements of Baxley, Georgia, added, “I’m deeply humbled by the experience.”
Actor Omari Hardwick and comedian Roy Wood, Jr. both played in the Juneteenth celebrity game.
“It just feels very, very humbling to be a part of such a collection folks with [former MLBers] Barry Bonds and Derek Jeter coaching,” said the Power star.
Wood also reflected on the late Willie Mays, who died on June 18 at 93. “He plays the game with grace. He lived his life with grace. And I think that’s something that every player can come away with,” he concluded.
