BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Nearly one year to the date that Giants and Cardinals played a regulation game at Rickwood Field, signs of the big league's presence remain all over the 115-year-old ballpark. The San Francisco and St. Louis logos remain emblazoned on the walls of the rehabbed dugouts, and their name plates are fixed on the manual scoreboard, and their lineups are still written in chalk on the lineup wall inside. The padded outfield fence bears the same advertisements with the fake painted wood effects.
Also, the field itself remains in great condition.
The upgrades that Major League Baseball made to the playing surface, with a modern drainage system underneath and groundskeeping oversight throughout the year, are still holding strong. It'll be ready for an MLB exhibition event, the East-West Classic, this coming Juneteenth.
The louder elements of MLB's presence have faded, allowing Rickwood Field to breathe again. The outfield is no longer dominated by the enormous batter's eye for cameras and the adjacent video screen. The rest of the carnival that enclosed Rickwood from the surrounding neighborhood -- the sea of tents for clubhouses and crews, the massive light towers, the labyrinth of tunnels for security screenings -- left town. The sidewalks are for walking, the streets are for driving and parking, and the historic box office and entrance processes paying customers again.
The section behind the outfield that was blocked off last year in order to stage Fox's broadcast operations is back open, allowing fans to contemplate Rickwood's original dimensions as marked by the old concrete wall ...
... and watch the numbers change on the manual scoreboard.
Since minor league pitchers are trained to move quickly, the pitch clocks weren't missed. The concrete, steel and wood trapped natural baseball sounds and chatter, making the lack of walkup songs less crucial for capturing attention.
Major League Baseball injected sorely needed life and resources into Rickwood. It's not a pristine time capsule, but a ballpark can't be buried in order to be preserved from the elements, and there's plenty of rust, chipped paint and patchwork asphalt to go around. The face lift didn't change the essence of the park, nor its technological capacities. Rickwood Field should be set to provide steady doses of lo-fi baseball for years to come, should you want it. And you should want it.
