Major League Baseball’s at Rickwood Field tonight, and while Willie Mays is deservedly the focus, the stadium’s history is even bigger than him. Here’s a short video from Clinton Yates at ESPN telling the story.
Tonight will celebrate so many things, chief among them the indomitable spirit of the fabled players of the Negro Leagues. Mays will be personally celebrated, as is right, and Rickwood Field itself will be spotlit in front of the baseball world, where it has long belonged. Somewhere further down the celebratory list, tonight will honor the game itself. Tonight, like that first Field of Dreams game three summers ago, is a celebration of baseball. What makes it so special is that while the Field of Dreams game simply celebrated baseball, this Rickwood Field game is celebrating what baseball can do.
It’s easy to roll eyes when sports receive the Disney treatment. This isn’t Disney’s fault, even if Disney’s come up short now and then of the stories it honors. Two hours isn’t much time, and we want cleaner finishes as an audience than we encounter in the real world. But the power of sports is real, and the magic of baseball is real, and what we’ll see tonight in Alabama is a demonstration of that. Sports might not change the world in an absolute and final manner. But what does? Sports do push us forward. They’re a proving ground. They’re a common ground. They provide hope.
The story of the Negro Leagues, though decades old, is still hardly beginning to be told. There is so much there to engrave in baseball’s canon. But tonight’s a big step in that latest portion of the journey—the storytelling part. Tonight’s a celebration worth celebrating.
Miscellany
- We’re a few weeks away from Wimbledon, but we’ve got a Great British Hope alert. Earlier today, Jack Draper—a 22-year-old from South London—beat Carlos Alcaraz on grass at the Queen’s Club Championships. Alcaraz suddenly looks vulnerable again, Draper’s in line to be seeded at the major, and Londoners have cause to believe in one of their own. All of this just days after the aged Andy Murray got hurt. There’s an echo of reincarnation here.
- When Marc Stein says the Hawks are, per the Hoops Rumors rundown, unable to secure a workout with Alexandre Sarr, does that mean Sarr doesn’t want to be a Hawk? I’m puzzled. Do NBA prospects have more power over their destination than we realize?
