During the branding announcement Thursday for the 2024 Major League Baseball game to be held at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, MLB Network host Harold Reynolds shared a text message from Hall of Famer Willie Mays.

Reynolds said he hopes and even expects Mays to attend the June 20, 2024 game, if his health allows.

Major League baseball will play a game at Rickwood Field, built in 1910 and America’s oldest surviving ballpark, as a tribute to the Negro Leagues on June 20, 2024. It will feature the St. Louis Cardinals playing the San Francisco Giants.

Mays, 92, a Birmingham-area native who grew up in Fairfield, made his professional debut at age 17 in 1948 for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, playing center field at Rickwood Field in Birmingham.

He went on to hit 660 home runs for the New York and San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, with a career .302 average in a Hall of Fame career.

There was some talk about the game being named the “Say Hey! Game,” invoking May’s nickname. Instead, MLB stuck with a broader branding: MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues.

But the legend of Willie Mays will definitely be in the air, whether Mays attends or not.

“The game, of course, is a symbolic celebration of the Negro Leagues, and its greatest living player, Willie Mays,” said Reynolds, a former All-Star and Gold Glove-winning second baseman for the Seattle Mariners.

“When I was first signed, I was in the instructional league, and Willie Mays was teaching Chili Davis how to play center field,” Reynolds recalled. “Forget practice, we sprinted out to go meet Willie Mays. Since that time, I’ve had a real close relationship with Willie. So, knowing that I was coming to Alabama, and knowing he’s from home, I called him last night and he sent a text message for all of you to tell you what this means to him.”

Reynolds pulled out his cell phone to read the text message.

“Here’s Willie in his nineties, sending text messages,” Reynolds said. “I hope I can do that. Here’s what Willie had to say:

‘I was very happy to hear the Giants and Cardinals will play a Major League Baseball game at Rickwood Field next season. I have wonderful memories of playing there with the Black Birmingham Barons when I was only a kid, which, if you can believe it, was 75 years ago. I hope that the game will be a chance to remember so many really good ballplayers in the Negro Leagues who played at Rickwood Field but never got a chance to play in the big leagues. Harold, you better do your job.’”

“That’s how Willie rolls,” Reynolds added.

Reynolds, and other former Major League players Ryan Howard, Randy Winn, Birmingham native Ron Jackson were on hand for the announcement of the game’s branding name and the unveiling of the log. Mike Hill, senior vice president of on-field operations for MLB, also attended.

The Birmingham Black Barons won Negro American League championships in 1943, 1944 and 1948 playing with Rickwood as their home field, but lost the Negro World Series to the Washington Homestead Grays all three times. The Black Barons played at Rickwood from 1920 through 1960.

The players who have played at Rickwood Field include Mays, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. There have been 181 members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame documented to have played at Rickwood, more than half of all members of the Hall of Fame.

“A ton of legends have played in this park,” Reynolds said. “The history of Rickwood is unmatched by all the venues in sports.”

Minor league teams that called Rickwood Field home included the Birmingham A’s from 1967-75, with future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson playing there in 1967 before quickly moving up to the Major Leagues and going on to star with the Oakland A’s. Previous minor league teams playing at Rickwood typically went by the name Birmingham Barons and played at the park when it opened in 1910, on into the 1960s.

The Birmingham Barons, a Double-A minor league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, played home games at Rickwood Field from 1981-87, then at the Hoover Met from 1988-2012 before returning to Birmingham, moving to Region Field in 2013.

Rickwood Field hosted the Rickwood Classic as an annual event from 1988 through 2019, with the Barons returning to their former stadium for one game a season before the pandemic halted the tradition.

Reynolds announced that the Rickwood Classic would return next year also, with the Birmingham Barons playing the Montgomery Biscuits on June 18, two days before the MLB at Rickwood game.

Rickwood has been used as a set for several baseball historical movie productions include “Cobb,” a 1994 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones as Ty Cobb, “42,” a 2013 film starring Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, and “Soul of the Game,” a 1996 TV movie starring Blair Underwood as Robinson.

No plan for ticket sales for the MLB at Rickwood Field game has been announced yet.

See also: Major League Baseball announces branding for Rickwood Field game

Rickwood Field renovations will have America’s oldest ballpark ready for return of pro baseball

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