Rickwood Field
Rather than allow black players, the SA team owners vote to be cowardly bastards and shut the league down. So they screwed their fans over rather than do the right thing, just as their forebears did 100 years earlier, in 1861. Thus, the league committed suicide in order to stick it to the liberals. Like most actions designed, as would be said in the 21st Century, "to own the libs," it failed, and was just plain stupid.
In 1964, the original South Atlantic League (a.k.a. the SAL or "Sally League") filled the void, renaming itself the Southern League, and allowed integration. The Western Carolinas League took on the South Atlantic League name.
Charlie Finley, a Birmingham native who, by this point, owned the Kansas City Athletics, put a new team in Birmingham's historic Rickwood Field, and named them the Birmingham A's. Many of the players who became part of the "Swingin' A's" dynasty of the early 1970s played in Birmingham, including Reggie Jackson, who said it was his first exposure to full-scale racism. The A's won the SL Pennant in 1967, but, by that time, Reggie had been promoted to the big-league club, which moved to Oakland the next season.
In 1976, the A's contract with Birmingham ran out, and baseball did not return to Rickwood Field until 1981, when the Detroit Tigers brought a team in, and brought back the name of the previous team, the Birmingham Barons.
Built in 1910, Rickwood is the oldest standing baseball stadium in the world, and still hosts games, including annual "throwback" games by the Barons and Negro League reenactors. Because of its old-time architecture, the films Cobb, Soul of the Game and 42 have all used it (the last of those using it as the CGI-aided base for all the 1947 National League parks, including Ebbets Field).
Charlie Finley, a Birmingham native who, by this point, owned the Kansas City Athletics, put a new team in Birmingham's historic Rickwood Field, and named them the Birmingham A's. Many of the players who became part of the "Swingin' A's" dynasty of the early 1970s played in Birmingham, including Reggie Jackson, who said it was his first exposure to full-scale racism. The A's won the SL Pennant in 1967, but, by that time, Reggie had been promoted to the big-league club, which moved to Oakland the next season.
In 1976, the A's contract with Birmingham ran out, and baseball did not return to Rickwood Field until 1981, when the Detroit Tigers brought a team in, and brought back the name of the previous team, the Birmingham Barons.
The Barons moved into suburban Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in 1988. While it still hosts the SEC baseball tournament, the Barons moved again in 2013, to Regions Field, in downtown Birmingham. They have won 13 Pennants: In the old Southern League in 1906, 1912, 1914, 1928, 1929, 1931 and 1958; in the new Southern League as the A's in 1967; and, still in the SL but again under the Barons name, in 1983, 1987, 1993, 2002 and 2013. (UPDATE: They won the Pennant again in 2024 and 2025, making 15.)
The Birmingham Black Barons, who also played at Rickwood, won Negro League Pennants in 1942 and 1948, the latter with a 17-year-old kid from the neighboring town of Fairfield, named Willie Mays.
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October 31, 1961 was a Tuesday. It was also Halloween. Larry Mullen Jr., the drummer for rock band U2, was born.
Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 2 games played in the NBA, and they were a doubleheader at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. The New York Knicks beat the Cincinnati Royals, 131-127. The Knicks got 37 points from Willie Naulls and 30 Richie Guerin. The Royals got 37 from Oscar Robertson. And the Syracuse Nationals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 107-90.
And there was 1 game played in the NHL: The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at the Chicago Stadium.
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