Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

The extraordinary social history of Rickwood Field becomes the story of baseball itself, gloriously evoked for the centennial of America’s oldest ballpark.

While America has changed dramatically over the last hundred years, Rickwood Field, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, has remained fixed in time. Best-selling baseball writer Allen Barra journeyed to his native Alabama to capture the glories of a century of baseball lore. In chronicling the history of Rickwood Field, where the manually operated scoreboard still uses numbers painted on metal sheets, Barra also tells of segregated baseball, the vaunted Negro Leagues, and captures the ghosts of the players themselves, including Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays. Evoking such classics as Shoeless Joe and The Boys of Summer, Barra recalls not only a simpler, bygone era but also a city rife with racial tension and abject poverty, where a tattered ballpark was, and still is, a rare beacon of hope. Indeed, Barra skillfully convinces us that the histories of Rickwood Field, baseball, and the American south are inextricably bound together.
1100872209
Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

The extraordinary social history of Rickwood Field becomes the story of baseball itself, gloriously evoked for the centennial of America’s oldest ballpark.

While America has changed dramatically over the last hundred years, Rickwood Field, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, has remained fixed in time. Best-selling baseball writer Allen Barra journeyed to his native Alabama to capture the glories of a century of baseball lore. In chronicling the history of Rickwood Field, where the manually operated scoreboard still uses numbers painted on metal sheets, Barra also tells of segregated baseball, the vaunted Negro Leagues, and captures the ghosts of the players themselves, including Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays. Evoking such classics as Shoeless Joe and The Boys of Summer, Barra recalls not only a simpler, bygone era but also a city rife with racial tension and abject poverty, where a tattered ballpark was, and still is, a rare beacon of hope. Indeed, Barra skillfully convinces us that the histories of Rickwood Field, baseball, and the American south are inextricably bound together.
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Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

by Allen Barra
Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

by Allen Barra

eBook

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Overview

The extraordinary social history of Rickwood Field becomes the story of baseball itself, gloriously evoked for the centennial of America’s oldest ballpark.

While America has changed dramatically over the last hundred years, Rickwood Field, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, has remained fixed in time. Best-selling baseball writer Allen Barra journeyed to his native Alabama to capture the glories of a century of baseball lore. In chronicling the history of Rickwood Field, where the manually operated scoreboard still uses numbers painted on metal sheets, Barra also tells of segregated baseball, the vaunted Negro Leagues, and captures the ghosts of the players themselves, including Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays. Evoking such classics as Shoeless Joe and The Boys of Summer, Barra recalls not only a simpler, bygone era but also a city rife with racial tension and abject poverty, where a tattered ballpark was, and still is, a rare beacon of hope. Indeed, Barra skillfully convinces us that the histories of Rickwood Field, baseball, and the American south are inextricably bound together.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393079357
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 08/30/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Allen Barra is a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the best-selling author of The Last Coach, Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee and Rickwood Field. His writing appears in the Washington Post, Salon, Playboy, and The Daily Beast. He lives in New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 Up from the Slag Pile (1815-1909) 7

Chapter 2 Birmingham Men Do it Right (1910-1917) 27

Chapter 3 A Team of Their Own (1918-1925) 47

Chapter 4 The Golden Age (1926-1929) 73

Chapter 5 The Greatest Game Ever Played (1931) 93

Chapter 6 "There was Just Something about the Baseball in That Park" (1932-1947) 113

Chapter 7 "Well, I'm Going to the Ballgame" (1948-1949) 137

Chapter 8 "The Barons were a Memory" (1950-1960) 163

Chapter 9 Everything Dies But... (1961-2009) 185

Extra Innings

Appendix 1 There Used to be a Ballpark 207

Appendix 2 The Baron of Rickwood 221

Appendix 3 Voices of Rickwood 239

Appendix 4 This is a Ballpark 317

Acknowledgments 335

Notes 341

Bibliography 347

Illustration Credits 351

Index 355

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