Nearly six years have passed since the Mobile BayBears played their final game at Hank Aaron Stadium, seemingly closing the book on professional baseball in Alabama’s Port City.

But Mobile’s story with America’s pastime was never meant to end there.

Next Tuesday, the city will step back into the sports spotlight, honoring a legacy as rich as any in the sport. Fueled by an $11 million investment, Mobile will unveil the Hall of Fame Walk—a tribute not just to its past, but to its place in baseball’s pantheon.

With five homegrown Hall of Famers, the city stands proudly among the few that have shaped the very fabric of Major League Baseball. Only the largest of cities like New York and Chicago can claim as many Hall of Famers as Mobile – cities that are more than 15 times larger than the Gulf Coast city.

Thirteen states do not even have one Hall of Famer. And in Birmingham, where Major League Baseball hosted its “Tribute to the Negro Leagues” game at historic Rickwood Field last year, only one player – Willie Mays – is in the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame Walk opens with a ceremonial first pitch at 1:30 p.m. at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center on Water Street, celebrating what may be Alabama’s most distinctive pocket park in years.

“We’ve had ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings but nowhere have we had something like this,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said in April when the statues arrived. “This tells the history of the individuals who brought fame to the City of Mobile.”

City officials say they are trying to iron out the details for an event that will feature former athletes and stakeholders in the park project.

The Mobile City Council approved Tuesday to spend $1,000 out of each of the seven members’ discretionary funds to help pay for the event.

The park’s highlight includes six bronze statues of the city’s homegrown Hall of Famers with five enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y., and one enshrined at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

The statues include the following:

• Hank Aaron, who played primarily for the Braves organization from 1954-1976, and was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1982.
• Willie McCovey, who played primarily for the Giants from 1959-1980 and was inducted in 1989.
• Satchel Paige, who played in the Negro Leagues and in Major League Baseball from 1927-1965. He was inducted in 1971.
• Billy Williams, who played primarily with the Cubs from 1965-1976, and was inducted in 1987.
• Ozzie Smith, who played primarily with the Cardinals from 1978-1996, and was inducted in 2002.
• Robert Brazile Jr., who was an NFL linebacker for the Houston Oilers from 1975-1984. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

Each one of the statues will stand on an approximately 1-foot-tall pillar. An empty pillar will also be added for people to be included within the park and allow them to take selfies with the statues in the background.

The statues were designed and crafted by artist Brett Grill of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Most of the money for the project came from the city’s downtown tax-increment financing (TIF) district.

A TIF district in Alabama is a geographically defined area aimed at promoting economic development within its boundaries. As development occurs, the value of a property increases within the district and – as a result of rising property values – so do revenues generated by property taxes. The extra taxes are then set aside in the TIF fund to pay for projects like the Hall of Fame Plaza.

The plaza’s opening coincides with ongoing construction next door on a platform that will cater to Amtrak’s future Gulf Coast route connecting Mobile to New Orleans. That project is expected to be completed later this summer.