Birmingham Barons Tickets

Details of Birmingham Barons and the Ticket Luck value

Birmingham Barons
The Birmingham Barons are a minor league baseball team based in Birmingham, Alabama. The team, which plays in the Southern League, is the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox major-league club.

Origin
The Birmingham Barons were founded in 1885 with the name of Coal Barons when the founder players pooled together and gave rise to a very primitive team that played in the Southern Leagues during the early years of baseball as one of the survivals of Baseball in Birmingham. The modern Barons 1st Southern Association title came in 1906 as the team played extra ordinary and scored 85-47 under manager Harry Vaughn. The Owner changes.

The start of the century saw a greater change in the team with new owner Woodward. After reaching the final terms in February of 1910, Woodward's first objective was to construct a ballpark. He made plans for the first concrete-and-steel ballpark in the minor leagues and in due course he also consulted Philadelphia's legendary manager Connie Mack about building the 12.7 acre park. The name of the park, Rickwood Field, originated from Woodward's first name and part of his last name. Construction of Rickwood was completed on August 18, 1910. The Barons won the opener 3-2 over Montgomery, after a 2-run rally in the 9th inning. A crowd in excess of 10,000 came for the contest.

New Manager turned skipper
In 1908, the team got a new manager Carleton Molesworth. He ended up serving as skipper and that too for a very long period of time; till 1922. He helped the Barons to 2 Southern Association titles and became synonymous with Birmingham baseball. The Barons won their first SA title for Molesworth in Rickwood in 1912. The first of 5 Baseball Hall of Famers who played in a Barons uniform was Burleigh Grimes. The right-hander pitched in Birmingham from 1914-1916 and later became one of the last legal spitball pitchers in the majors.

The Roaring Twenties
The Barons set attendance records during the 1920s. During the decade the Barons drew 160,000 or more to Rickwood 8 times, including a then-team-record 299,150 in 1927, a year in which the Barons played all of their games during the day and there were no Sunday games. During 1927, Hall of Famer Rube Marquard pitched for the Barons.

The Years of Shadow of the Great Depression
The era of 1930s saw a plunge in the performance of the club as well as the downfall of its owner Woodward. Although it started off well for the Barons as the team won the 1931 pennant for second year manager Clyde Milan. But the depression in later years and its financial crunch forced Woodward to sell his beloved ball club, after 3 years of virtual bank ownership, to Ed Norton in 1938.

Rickwood's Grand Years
The Barons did not perform all that fantastic during the decade, but never the less, they claimed an SA pennant during the 1940s, but the resurgence of baseball across the country after World War II brought record crowds to Rickwood from 1948-50. In 1948, the Barons drew 445,926 to Rickwood winning the Dixie Series over Fort Worth and followed up with 421,305 in 1949. Unfortunately, the Barons did not win another SA pennant until 1958, when they won 91 games and the pennant by 6 1/2 games for Cal Ermer.

The reborn Southern League
Rickwood Field remained dark for 2 years before the Barons were reborn in 1964 in the newly formed Southern League, composed of members of the old Southern Association and the South Atlantic League.

The Kansas City (later Oakland) Athletics, owned by Charles Finley brought baseball back to the Magic City in 1967 with the Birmingham A's. The A's moved after the 1975 season to Chattanooga and Rickwood did not see Southern League baseball again for 5 seasons.

Playing Arena
The Barons moved to Regions Park in Hoover, Alabama in 1987 from historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham's West End community. Now, the Barons play in Regions Park which has seating capacity of 10,800 fans. They still play one throwback game called the Rickwood Classic each season in period uniforms at the old facility. The Barons have the honour that Great Michael Jordan played for them in 1994 after his first retirement from the NBA.

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