Take a poll of baseball fans about the most famous ancient ballparks in the U.S., and you'll get current landmarks like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, or those from the past like the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field. Few would ever think to mention Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., although as Barra explains in this highly informative book, the fabled Dixie ballpark deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. Opened in August 1910, Rickwood Field hosted some of the greatest players in history over the next several decades, like Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Reggie Jackson, and dozens of others. But the park became a part of something bigger in Alabama, as not only was it the home of teams from both the minor leagues and Negro League but also ""one of the few places where blacks and whites, at least a few of them, relaxed and enjoyed something together."" To the city of Birmingham, baseball was so important that when an exhibition involving both white and black players violated city laws, everyone chose to ""look the other way."" Barra also explores several other issues, including the segregationist history of the city and the economic factors that molded the area over the years. With dozens of photographs from years past, along with numerous interviews from those who created the park's history (the last part of the book is devoted to contemporary accounts from those who love Rickwood), Barra provides a special glimpse into one of America's undeservedly unknown sports treasures. (Aug.)

Wall Street Journal sports columnist Barra ( Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee , 2009, etc.) weaves discussions of baseball and race into his history of Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. Birmingham had always been a different Southern city, an industrial center not tied to an agrarian past, where the steel barons who owned the mills ruled the town. Baseball was as old as the city itself, with both emerging in the mid-19th century as the blast furnaces began roaring and the Birmingham Barons began playing. It wasn't until 1910, however, when industrialist Allen "Rick" Woodward built Rickwood Field, that the Barons had a "modern" steel-and-concrete ballpark in which to play. In 1920, the Black Barons also began play at Rickwood. "The little ballpark would survive the Great Depression, segregation, and the decline of the industrial age," writes the author, and it survives to this day. Within its confines, the greatest players in baseball history—black and white—plied their trade. Birmingham, truly Southern in its rigid segregation, found in baseball a commonality across race, though for years blacks had to watch games in the "Negro bleachers," separated from white fans by chicken wire. Still, when Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays or Babe Ruth played, a common experience unfolded and a common history was forged. When the integrated Barons moved to the suburbs in the late 1980s, a civic organization, Friends of Rickwood, insured that the ballpark would be restored and maintained. This effort became a model for other cities seeking to preserve classic ballparks. Barra supplements his fine history with an appendix that includes oral histories by generations of fans and players who shared the experience of Rickwood Field. More than the story of a ballpark, but also of memories, both good and bad, that should be preserved.