3 movies that filmed at historic ballpark

June 19, 20246 Mins Read

The giants of the game — from Satchel Paige to Willie Mays to Reggie Jackson — played ball at Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field.

And, on Thursday night, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants will meet in the first Major League Baseball game in the park’s 114-year-history.

But it will hardly be the first time the cameras have been focused on Rickwood.

America’s Oldest Baseball Park has a few Hollywood connections, too, and some of the legends of the screen — Chadwick Boseman and Tommy Lee Jones among them — also circled the bases at Rickwood.

Here, in chronological order, are three movies that were filmed at Rickwood Field, and the stories behind them.

Tommy Lee Jones starred as Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb in director Ron Shelton’s “Cobb,” which was filmed at Rickwood Field in 1994.

“Cobb” (1994)

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Wuhl, Lolita Davidovich.

Directed by: Ron Shelton.

The plot: In hopes of cleaning up his reputation as the most hated man in baseball, aging Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb (Jones) hand-picks sportswriter Al Stump (Wuhl) to write his autobiography before he dies. Stump, though, discovers all the horror stories about the hateful Cobb are accurate, and he is torn between trying to please Cobb and telling the truth.

Behind the scenes: Five nights before filming began, Tommy Lee Jones won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role in “The Fugitive.” While chatting with some of the extras on the first day of filming, Jones was asked how he liked being in Alabama. “”I like Alabama,” he said. “This is my fourth movie here. I’ve been to Mobile twice and Selma once.” The next day, Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens took the mound at Rickwood to play the Philadelphia A’s pitcher who has a confrontation with Cobb.

Noteworthy: Tropical rocker Jimmy Buffett had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo as “The Armless Man,” a heckler who gets attacked by Cobb in the stands. Buffett performed a brief acoustic set for the “Cobb” cast and crew following his shoot.

Quoteworthy: “It’s the only old minor-league park that has a wrap-around right field, which is what baseball, to me, is all about,” “Cobb” director Ron Shelton, a former minor-league ballplayer, told The Birmingham News of his decision to film at Rickwood Field. “I looked at all the old ballparks — I played in most of them — and this was my favorite.”

“Soul of the Game” starred, from left, Blair Underwood as From left, Blair Underwood as Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige and Mykelti Williamson as Josh Gibson. Much of the HBO movie was filmed at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.

“Soul of the Game” (1996)

Starring: Delroy Lindo, Mykelti Williamson, Blair Underwood, Edward Herrmann, R. Lee Ermey.

Directed by: Kevin Rodney Sullivan.

The plot: In the days just before Major League Baseball is integrated, Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey (Herrmann) sends his scouts to the Negro Leagues to check out the ageless wonder Satchel Paige (Lindo), the homerun-hitting Josh Gibson (Williamson) and the up-and-coming Jackie Robinson (Underwood).

Behind the scenes: Rickwood Field, which doubled as Chicago’s old Comiskey Park and Washington’s old Griffith Stadium, was featured in several key scenes throughout the movie, including the emotional ending.

Noteworthy: Mykelti Williamson was a little more than a year removed from playing Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue in “Forrest Gump” when he came to Rickwood in 1995 to play Negro Leagues legend Josh Gibson, a prodigious power hitter who was hailed as “the Black Babe Ruth.” Williamson had to do his homework before he started filming. “I was really embarrassed once I began my research and found out what kind of contribution this man (Gibson) had made to sports and Americana,” he told The Birmingham News while filming “Soul of the Game” at Rickwood. “I learned that Babe Ruth himself said that Josh Gibson was the greatest baseball player he had ever seen. The man hit over 900 home runs. He’s still the only baseball player who has ever hit a home run outside of New York Yankee Stadium. I mean over the top, outside, bye-bye.”

Quoteworthy: “It’s extraordinary what we were able to accomplish there,” director Kevin Rodney Sullivan told The Birmingham News about filming at Rickwood Field. “We made Griffith Stadium and Comiskey Park believable — in one place. It’s the best commercial Rickwood will ever have.”

Bessemer,native Andre Holland played sportwriter Wendell Smith in the movie “42,” which filmed at Rickwood Field in 2012.

“42″ (2013)

Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie, Andre Holland, Lucas Black.

Directed by: Brian Helgeland.

The plot: In 1947, Jackie Robinson (Boseman) faces racist taunts and threats when Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Ford) signs him to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier.

The backstory: Rickwood doubles for Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J., and for Forbes Field in Pittsburgh in “42,” and in an opening scene — which takes place when Robinson came to Birmingham with the Kansas City Monarchs to play the Birmingham Black Barons — Rickwood stars as itself.

Noteworthy: Andre Holland — who grew up in nearby Bessemer and went on to appear in “Selma” and in the Oscar-winning best picture “Moonlight,” as well as the FX anthology series “American Horror Story,” had a breakout performance in “42″ as Wendell Smith, the Black sportswriter who chronicles Jackie Robinson’s journey as he breaks baseball’s color barrier. Another Alabama native — “Sling Blade,” “Friday Nights Lights” and “NCIS: New Orleans” star Lucas Black, who grew up in Speake — played Robinson’s Dodgers teammate and eventual friend, Pee Wee Reese.

Quoteworthy: “I never had (seen) the footage of (Robinson) getting to the plate, what happens between the deck and the plate,” Boseman said of filming at Rickwood Field during a 2013 interview with AL.com. “So I figured I needed to make something up because this is when he is preparing to play, to get his mind right. For some, reason being in that ballpark — because this was the first ballpark that we filmed in — made me come up with him rubbing his hands together with dirt and finding that space where he could perform. In some sense, it was a prayer and in another sense, it was getting his hands ready to hold a bat. But I didn’t know I was going to do that until the cameras were rolling, and the stadium (Rickwood) gave me that.”