At Historic Rickwood Field, Blue Wahoos Fans Embrace Memorable Experience

The moment Nick Delgado learned of a bus trip to see the Blue Wahoos experience yesteryear in “The Rickwood Game” at Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field, he reacted with urgency.

“I jumped on it,” said Delgado, who works Blue Wahoos home games greeting and scanning entry for season-ticket holders. “I thought we got to get tickets. This is a once in a lifetime thing. I’ll probably never be here again. I wanted to be part of this.

“It’s pretty amazing. I was just excited to come and just see the sights.”

On Wednesday, Delgado was part of a sold-out charter bus trip, arranged by the Blue Wahoos, for season-ticket holders and gameday staff, to enjoy the latest element of the team’s franchise history.

They saw quite a record-setting show, too.

Wearing the uniforms of the Pensacola Seagulls, a feeder team for the former Negro Southern League, the Seagulls blasted the Birmingham Black Barons 23-4 at the venerable 116-year-old Rickwood Field – the oldest existing ballpark in America.

Pensacola set three franchise records in the game: Most runs, most hits (25) most homers (7) in a single game of the team’s 15-year existence.

All of it made the four-hour trip even more memorable.

“Ironically, when it first came about this game, I emailed Erik Bremer (Blue Wahoos broadcaster/media relations director) and said, Erik this would be a good bus trip (for season ticket holders) and he said, ‘Ah great minds think alike.’ It was immediate,” said Carolyn Patterson, a season ticket holder with her husband since 2015.

Even before the Blue Wahoos set a tone with three runs in the first inning, the fans had already absorbed the unique elements of the ballpark.

The trip through time began at 7 a.m. at Blue Wahoos Stadium and the Colonial Trailways bus arrived at Rickwood Field an hour before the first pitch, along with a Blue Wahoos van, truck and rental mini-van that carried members of the front office staff.

“I loved the fact they put the starting lineups on a chalk board right when you walked through the main gate,” said June Calhoun, a season-ticket member. “It’s a very interesting place.”

The Blue Wahoos were just the third visiting Minor League Baseball team to play against Birmingham at this national historic venue since it was refurbished in 2023 by Major League Baseball to host a regular-season game in 2024 between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants.

“Once we knew we were playing in this game, we wanted to be able to bring some season ticket members and staff,” said Brandon Miller, the Blue Wahoos assistant general manager. “We got a group together and we all traveled up here… and it’s pretty cool.

“We’ve gotten a lot really good input from people who appreciated us bringing a bus up here. People were excited for it.”

The Blue Wahoos and Barons will now resume this series on Thursday at Birmingham’s Regions Field downtown. Pensacola’s win evened the series at 1-1 and pushed the Blue Wahoos (24-23) back to a winning record.

The special one-time MLB game in 2024 was arranged to honor Birmingham native and MLB icon Willie Mays, who died two days before the game was to played.

Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons as a high school junior and led the club to a Negro Southern League championship. He made his MLB debut in 1951, led the New York Giants in 1954 to their final World Series title before the franchise moved to San Francisco.

Mays, nicknamed the “Say Hey Kid” by a New York sportswriter for his friendly greeting, became one of the greatest players in MLB history during his 23 seasons of superlatives.

The legends who played at Rickwood are part of the allure of the ballpark, which opened in 1910 at the same north Birmingham neighborhood and had early 1900’s greats Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth among its competing players.

The stadium’s faded wood chair seating, wood grandstands, hand-operated scoreboard, ramps and original press box are part of the charm. The capacity is more than 8,000 and a sizeable crowd showed up Wednesday. As an adding touch, old style, red-white-blue bunting was displayed on the façade throughout the stadium.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Blue Wahoos president Jonathan Griffith. “It’s a really different experience. I haven’t seen the video board (laughing) yet. I think it’s special for the fans who were able to come as well as the players to be able to play here with all the history. It’s incredible and special to say you’re a part of it.”

The Pensacola Seagulls, whose legacy will be celebrated on two other occasions this year at Blue Wahoos Stadium, played at Legion Field as a feeder team for the Negro Southern League in the 1940s and continued as a semipro integrated team until the 1970s.

They had the longest tenure in Pensacola, later becoming an semipro, non-affiliated, integrated team, all the way into the 1970’s.

The best of those players was Johnny Joe Lewis. The Booker T. Washington High graduate played for the Seagulls. He was an outfielder, who then attended a Detroit Tigers tryout as a catcher. He later made his MLB debut in 1964 with the St. Louis Cardinals.

With their performance yesterday wearing the Seagulls uniforms, the Blue Wahoos gave more attention to Pensacola’s history with Negro League Baseball and the memories created at Rickwood Field.

“Rickwood Field isn’t just a ballpark -- it’s a living reminder of the game’s roots,” said Paul Janish, the director of player development for the White Sox, in a news release to announce The Rickwood Game. “For the Birmingham Barons, stepping onto this field is stepping into the footsteps of legends, honoring the generations who built the game, and carrying that history forward for the next wave of players and fans.”