Baseball at Rickwood

The original Field of Dreams.

For the last three summers, Major League Baseball has hosted a major or minor league game at the Field of Dreams site in Dyersville, Iowa. The games have been a smashing success. The state of Iowa is committing money towards building a permanent stadium at the site, which could host a variety of games and other events.

Speaking of the movie Field of Dreams, a lot of baseball people love it, and some absolutely hate it. I fall into the love category. I’m a big Kevin Costner fan, which provides my family with hours of great comedy material on my behalf. Field of Dreams was also the last movie my father and I attended together and given his precarious health, will most likely remain so. I just don’t see us going to see something like Iron Man 8 and having the same emotional impact as Field of Dreams had so many years ago. Like many of you, my father taught me how to play ball, usually at the end of his long workday, still wearing his work clothes and delaying supper until we’d thrown for an hour or two. Such is the bond between fathers and sons when it comes to baseball.

I don’t think Field of Dreams falls into the top ten or even top fifty movies of all time, say like Jaws, which to me, is definitely top ten. If you were alive when Jaws hit the theaters, you know the impact that it had. People were terrified of going into the water. It didn’t matter if it was the ocean or a freshwater lake, during the summer of 1975, many people opted to stay on the shore. I know how it affected me and my friend Dennis. We’d be swimming at Lake Wilson, one of the clearest water lakes in the country, a landlocked freshwater lake to boot, and we were still a nervous wreck. It didn’t help that my parents, always primed for a practical joke, played on our irrational fears. “Holy cow, Karen, did you see the size of that fish that just swam by”. Have you seen the cartoon where the character runs on top of the water? Yeah, that was us. In a nutshell, that’s why Jaws is a top-ten movie. That, plus the monologue by Robert Shaw about the USS Indianapolis.

In keeping with the Field of Dreams theme, Major League Baseball will return to historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama on June 20. Rickwood, which bills itself as the oldest professional ballpark in the United States, will host the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants that evening in what promises to be a night to remember.

First a little about Rickwood. It was constructed in 1910 at a cost of $75,000. It was home to the Birmingham Barons of the Negro Leagues from 1920 until 1960. Rickwood has the distinction of hosting the last game ever played in the Negro League World Series in 1948. That series was won by the Homestead Greys in five games over the Barons and a very young player named Willie Mays.

Integration was the death knell for the Negro Leagues and in 1964, the Kansas City Athletics moved their AA affiliate from Binghamton, New York to Birmingham of the Southern League. That marriage only lasted until the end of the 1965 season, before the Athletics abandoned Birmingham for Mobile.

On June 27, 1965, the Athletics played and lost a doubleheader to the Indians in Cleveland, which dropped them to 20-45. After the game, they boarded the team plane and flew to Birmingham, where on the 28^th they played an exhibition game against the Barons at Rickwood. The Athletics skipper was 34-year-old former player Haywood Sullivan. Sullivan had started the season as manager of the Athletics AAA team in Vancouver, but after the team got off to a 5-21 start, manager Mel McGaha was given his walking papers. The Athletics thought Sullivan demonstrated leadership qualities that would resonate with his squad, many of whom he had played with just two seasons ago.

Several of the current Athletics had played in Birmingham in 1964, including Bert Campaneris, Paul Lindblad, Blue Moon Odom, Ken Sanders, Larry Stahl, Jim Nash and Ron Tompkins. The 1965 Barons featured future Kansas City players Chuck Dobson, Dave Duncan, Ted Kubiak, Tony LaRussa, Bill Landis and Ken Saurez. Here’s a copy of the flyer that was pasted around Birmingham promoting the game.

Starting for the big league club was 19-year-old Kansas City native Don Buschorn, a right-handed pitcher who hailed from William Crisman High School in Independence. Buschorn had one of those Kansas City careers that I always find fascinating - bonus baby, one season in the big leagues, 12 appearances. He started three games and pitched a grand total of 31 innings with an ERA of 4.35. In 1966, the Athletics sent him back to Class A Modesto. In 1968 and 1969, still pitching in the organization, he was stationed back in AA Birmingham. And that was it, he was out of baseball at the tender age of 23.

Very little information about the game survived, other than a handful of eyewitness accounts. The game itself was competitive. Birmingham jumped out to an early 2-0 lead before the Athletics squad rallied for four runs and the win. John O’Donoghue, another Kansas City native, picked up the win in relief of Buschorn.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the upcoming game in Birmingham if for no other reason than to get a good look at Rickwood Field. It’s a beautiful ballpark, modeled after Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. There are very few like Rickwood still standing, with its classic erector set light standards and outfield fence billboards. Rickwood is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a must-see for any serious stadium geek.

Many notable stars have played at Rickwood over the years, including Sal Bando, Vida Blue, Darrell Evans, Rollie Fingers, Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace, Bo Jackson, and Michael Jordan. Go grab yourself a cold beverage and enjoy a piece of baseball history on Thursday evening.