SF Giants and Cardinals will play at legendary Rickwood Field in 2024

The SF Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will face off in the 2024 regular season at legendary Rickwood Field, Willie Mays' home ballpark 75 years ago.

The SF Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will meet for a historic game at legendary Rickwood Field next season to honor Juneteenth and the Negro Leagues. The game is scheduled for June 20th, 2024. Rickwood Field, the nation's oldest professional ballpark, was built in 1910. In its long history, the field once served as home to the Birmingham Black Barons, one of the most successful Negro League teams. In fact, MLB legend Willie Mays played with the Black Barons in 1948 before signing with the Giants.

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In his lone season with the team, at only 17, Mays helped them advance to the 1948 Negro World Series. After graduating from high school, he would sign with the New York Giants, and the rest of his illustrious career was history.

MLB has hosted two games in Dyersville, Iowa in a nod to the site where the baseball-themed movie "Field of Dreams" was filmed, but has pursued new locations to host culturally significant games. The date was specifically chosen to coincide with Juneteenth and to give MLB an opportunity to pay homage to the Negro Leagues, Mays, and the players who paved the way for integration in MLB.

“I can’t believe it," Mays said via a statement released by the league. "I never thought I’d see in my lifetime a Major League Baseball game being played on the very field where I played baseball as a teenager.”

Rickwood, in addition to helping launch the start of the greatest living player's career, was home to several other historical moments. The American and National leagues played exhibition games at the field; it hosted Michael Jordan's brief interlude with baseball, and Satchel Paige won more baseball games with the Barons there than any other team.

In 1948's Negro World Series, Willie Mays and the Black Barons lost 4-1 against the Homestead Grays. In the sole game the Barons took that series, William Greason came in to hold a tie at the top of the ninth inning, and in the bottom of the ninth, Mays hit a walk-off single to end the game. Greason would go on to be the first black pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Mays, of course, would make history with the SF Giants. Now the two teams will get to build on this history when they face off at the hallowed grounds in 2024.