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In celebration of
Rickwood Field’s 100th Anniversary,
Vulcan Park and Museum is proud to
present From Factory to Field: The
Dream of Baseball in Birmingham.
This fascinating
exhibition, which recounts the rise of
baseball in Birmingham’s sandlots and
company towns and takes visitors through
the heyday of professional baseball with
the
Barons and
Black Barons, will be on view from
April 1 – October 3, 2010, in
Linn-Henley Gallery located inside
Vulcan Center Museum. Entrance is
included with general admission to
Vulcan Park and Museum. Adults $6 (plus
tax); Seniors $5 (plus tax); Children 5
– 12 $4 (plus tax); under 4 free.
From Factory to Field
features rarely seen archival photos
that will introduce visitors to unknown
industrial and Negro league players and
Birmingham’s baseball luminaries.
Highlights include an autographed photo
of baseball legend Willie Mays and a
1915 TCI League Championship team photo
that hung in the breezeway at Rickwood
Field for decades and was salvaged after
the 1961 season.
Vintage equipment,
uniforms and souvenir promotional
materials from the private collections
of Joe Holley, Lamar Smith, Clarence
Watkins, and others are also on view.
Featured items include a 1960 Rickwood
Field 50th Anniversary Souvenir
Scorecard, a Birmingham Black Barons
fans cap, an early 1900s Reach “Burley”
bat, and a 1920s Industrial League team
jersey.
Baseball has been a
presence in Birmingham almost since the
city’s founding in 1871. In the last
decades of the 1800s, as the iron
industry fueled the building of early
Birmingham, amateur teams dotted the
city and sporadic attempts to field a
professional team were made. In 1906 –
the year the city’s icon, Vulcan, was
placed at the Alabama State Fairgrounds
– the Birmingham Vulcanites captured its
first Southern League pennant. The year
1910 marked milestones for both the city
and the sport: Birmingham’s annexation
of eight incorporated cities and ten
unincorporated towns secured its
identity as an industrial metropolis and
the construction of Rickwood Field gave
professional baseball a home to rival
parks in other major cities.
From Factory to
Field: The Dream of Baseball in
Birmingham tells the story of a city
through its relationship with the
national pastime.
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