Just days before Major League Baseball was set to honor the legacy of the Negro Leagues with a game at the legendary Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, Willie Mays died at the age of 93. Mays, who was born in Westfield, Alabama, just minutes away from Rickwood Field, played his first professional home games there in 1948 as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League.
Mays' San Francisco Giants are taking on the St. Louis Cardinals tonight in the first MLB regular-season game at Rickwood Field.