BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It was the ultimate rookie dress-up day.
Everyone in the San Francisco Giants’ traveling party — players, coaches, broadcasters, trainers, analysts, clubhouse staff — received a Birmingham Black Barons jersey and a hat with the team’s Triple-B logo. They were encouraged to wear them on the team bus to Rickwood Field on Thursday. Giants manager Bob Melvin informed the group that the jersey would meet the dress code for the flight to St. Louis later Thursday night, too.
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The jerseys all featured No. 8 on the back — the number that Willie Mays wore in 1948 when he was a 17-year-old playing in his first professional games and showing the first flashes of greatness in a baseball career that would leave a lasting impact on the Giants franchise, on the sport, and on American history.
Melvin received near-unanimous compliance. The Giants turned a clubhouse tradition on its ear before and after their 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Instead of making the rookies dress up, Giants players representing every level of service time dressed up as a rookie. They wore replicas of the jersey that a teenage Mays put on when he was too young even to be dubbed the “Say Hey Kid” for the first time.
It was the first of the night’s countless gestures and tributes to Mays, whose 93-year-old heart fluttered for the final time on Tuesday — just two days before the Giants and Cardinals were scheduled to salute the Negro Leagues while playing at the intimate, 115-year-old ballpark that endures as a temple and testament to that determined and talented era.
Mays’ death added to the power and poignancy of the pregame ceremonies, and although his presence loomed over everything, it did not smother everyone else the night was created to recognize. The ceremonies ran 21 minutes long yet still seemed far too short. Dozens of former Negro Leagues players joined the Giants and Cardinals along the baselines, wholly included in mind and body as well as in the statistical record.
Thank you, Rickwood 🖤
Thank you, Birmingham ♥️ pic.twitter.com/UFUDxSTg9I— SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 21, 2024
Mays’ plaque from the Baseball Hall of Fame, which left Cooperstown for the first time to be at Rickwood, became a proxy for a funeral viewing. Hundreds lined up to see the plaque and have their picture taken with it. Mays’ godson, Barry Bonds, stood to one side as former greats including Ken Griffey Jr., Jimmy Rollins, CC Sabathia and Adam Jones waited in line in center field for their turn to pose for a picture.
Prior to the game, Melvin, who played at Rickwood Field over parts of three Double-A seasons, marveled at what he observed when he stepped inside the ballpark for the first time in 40 years. Major League Baseball and its logistical partners erected two fully outfitted clubhouses in air-conditioned tents. They created a ballpark village with a food court, a concert stage, a merchandise pavilion and a museum-quality exhibit about the Negro Leagues. They closed off the surrounding streets and clogged the usually quiet residential block around the ballpark with portable facilities, media workspaces and security barriers. But once Melvin stepped inside the ballpark, even after it received a significant facelift complete with mostly tasteful period advertisements (ads for the totally modern concept of wagering sites aside), he realized that the character of the place hadn’t changed one bit.
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“The bleachers look the same, the stands, the roof in right field, the scoreboard in left field, all those things are the same,” Melvin said. “Now, there’s a big scoreboard they put up in right-center, and you see all the cameras and the lights they brought in for this game, but I love the fact that it looks pretty much the same as when I played here. When you talk about the oldest ballpark in this country, it still should have that feel.”
“It was like stepping back in time,” Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski said.
Well, except maybe when Yastrzemski’s first at-bat was delayed because the Cardinals couldn’t get their Pitchcom receiver to work. That was never an issue for Satchel Paige.
The game itself included moments of inspiration and, for the spiritually inclined, the feel of a guiding touch from beyond. Melvin held a pregame meeting and told a couple of his favorite stories about Mays, including his nervous first attempt at conversation with the retired legend in 1986. Melvin asked Mays how he contended with the infamous wind at Candlestick Park when it would knock down drives to left field. Simple, Mays replied. He’d just hit it to right field instead.
How about this coincidence, then? A few hours after that pregame speech, the Giant playing Mays’ position in center field, Heliot Ramos, hit a home run that kept carrying until it cleared the right-field fence. The opposite-field shot came with two aboard and erased the Cardinals’ 3-0 lead in the third inning.
“Willie speaking through him, I guess,” Yastrzemski said.
The Giants took the field determined to honor Mays with a victory and Melvin managed the game that way. He pulled struggling starter Keaton Winn in the third inning. He used his entire setup staff. He managed like he was protecting a lead even though the Giants trailed after the fifth inning.
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“This is one we were going to try to fight for hard,” Melvin said. “The way our at-bats have been late in games, against closers, (quality) relievers, we always feel we have a chance. So we went a little above and beyond tonight in trying to win.”
But the Giants stranded two runners in the ninth when Matt Chapman struck out to end the game. There was disappointment beyond the result, too. Yastrzemski felt his left oblique tighten up on a swing and it got worse when he made a throw from right field. So Austin Slater pinch hit for him in the fourth inning.
“It’s disappointing (because) I really wanted to be out there the whole time,” Yastrzemski said. “Unfortunately, you have to be cautious. It doesn’t feel worth potentially losing six weeks.”
These special-event games haven’t worked out well for Yastrzemski. He missed more than two weeks last season after he strained a hamstring in the series at Mexico City. His status is questionable for the remainder of the series on Saturday and Sunday in St. Louis.
The injury timing was most unfortunate for LaMonte Wade Jr., who was unable to play Thursday night due to a strained hamstring. Wade allowed himself to hope that Major League Baseball would approve the Giants’ request to activate him for a day from the 10-day injured list and add him as their designated 27th player without having to reset his eligibility clock. Melvin was hopeful, too, saying he merely wanted to get Wade an at-bat off the bench.
Wade, who is Black, expressed disappointment that the league wouldn’t consider the circumstances and grant a special dispensation.
“I thought it was going to work out,” Wade said. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t. (Melvin) really pushed for it and I appreciate him for doing that. You’ve got to follow the rules but for something like this, you’d think they would make an exception. I feel like we make exceptions in this league for other stuff as well. So why not this one?”
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The Giants sought to include Wade as much as they could. Melvin tasked him with taking out the lineup card. Wade and Cardinals coach Willie McGee each lent a steadying hand as 99-year-old Bill Greason, the former Black Barons ace who later became the first Black pitcher in Cardinals history, threw out a ceremonial first pitch. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Hall of Fame requested and received Wade’s San Francisco Sea Lions jersey, the jerseys the team wore during the game, to commemorate his participation in the day’s events.
The Giants’ inclusion efforts trickled down to their minor-league system as well. The organization invited every player at all levels who claimed any African-American heritage to take leave from their affiliates and travel at the Giants’ expense to Birmingham to attend the game. Nearly a dozen players, including 2022 first-round pick Reggie Crawford and talented outfield prospect Grant McCray, took up the team on its offer.
“I’m so glad I could be here to be a part of this,” said Crawford, who is on the Triple-A injured list with what is believed to be mild shoulder inflammation. “This is something I wouldn’t want to miss.”
Rickwood Field bore silent witness to an important chapter in America’s history. The Negro Leagues were not merely a one-dimensional era of boundless joy and spirited play exhibited by characters with names like Turkey and Cool Papa; they only existed because of hate, oppression, and exclusion. It’s hard, and sometimes uncomfortable, to hear the rest of the story. But one does not exist without the other.
Because of what Jackie Robinson and others endured while breaking baseball’s color barrier, Mays played only 13 games for the Black Barons in 1948. Three years later, he was a 20-year-old taking the major leagues by storm with the New York Giants. Mays arrived to professional baseball at precisely the right time. This week, he couldn’t return to Rickwood, where his professional career began, in person, but he was there in spirit.
“I’ve been coming to terms with it and I believe it was for a reason, so he could be here spiritually with us,” Yastrzemski said. “He wasn’t going to be with us otherwise. So as much as it hurts to lose a legend, we gained an angel.”
(Photo of Heliot Ramos: Casey Sykes / Getty Images)