Rain doesn't dampen excitement for Willie Mays Park rededication

FAIRFIELD, Ala. -- The bunting was hung, the scoreboard was turned on, and the last touches of red and blue paint on the steps and railings was so fresh you could still smell it.

Everything was in place on Thursday morning to celebrate the great Willie Mays, one year and one day after he died, for the rededication of a renovated baseball and softball field at a park that bears his name, here in his hometown.

But then the gray skies grew darker and the rain started falling, sending those on hand – including his son, Michael, community figures and representatives from Major League Baseball – scurrying to the dugouts, their cars and the tents set up on the field. The pomp and circumstance was called off, but that doesn’t change the fact that a field that had fallen into disrepair has been refurbished and is now ready to be used for competitive games once again.

And that’s exactly what the Say Hey Kid would’ve wanted.

“He’d say, ‘Get rid of all this hubbub and let’s get to playing,” Michael Mays said on the field before the rain started.

There may be no better way to remember an icon who could glide across the grass or bound around the bases with the best of them than to repair and reopen the field at the park named for him.

“We're excited,” Mays said in an interview with MLB.com. “And we’re even more excited to be seeing some kids out here playing. The ribbon cutting is all good, but it’s tomorrow, [and] the day after, the day after, the day after that we’re focused on. If I’m 9, 10, 11, 12 years old and I get to come out here, it’s a good thing.”

The park was hit by a tornado in June 2017, leaving the field and other structures in disarray. Last December, MLB announced that the proceeds from the Winter Meetings charity auction would go toward renovating the field, as a continuation of the celebration of the Hall of Famer’s life and legacy that stemmed from the MLB at Rickwood game between the Giants and Cardinals.

Three-time All-Star and 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy is from Mobile, four hours south – and home of Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams and Ozzie Smith, he’s happy to point out. Peavy is a big proponent of keeping Mays’ legacy alive with projects like this.

“We shot some video where Willie grew up [in advance of MLB at Rickwood in June 2024],” Peavy said, “and it sparked the idea [that] we had to do something to honor his legacy further, and to bring this to life. So Major League Baseball and many others are responsible for what you’re looking at today, and it’s going to impact the kids and the community.”

MLB Together teamed with community partners around Fairfield to clear out the overgrowth, shore up the structures, install a turf infield, resod the outfield and give local residents a field that can be used again.

“It is gorgeous,” said MLB Senior Vice President of Social Responsibility April Brown. “We are so proud when MLB gets to work together with community partners and do something really special that will leave a legacy off the baseball field. We are just incredibly honored.”

Built in the years after World War II, the park was first known simply as 66^th Street Park. In addition to the diamond, the grounds featured basketball courts and a picnic area. In 1985, it was rededicated in Mays’ honor, with the Hall of Famer on hand for the ceremony.

Among the institutions and organizations who will benefit from the refurbished field are the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club, local Nike RBI programs, Little League teams and the baseball team from Fairfield’s Miles College.

“That's what Willie Mays’ legacy was all about,” Brown said. “He was about the children and introducing them to the sport he loved. So, to be here in Fairfield, his birthplace, at the park named after him, and have this brand new, newly refurbished baseball field – and now, softball field – so that all levels of play can come out here and be in the park that honors his name is incredible.”

Some of those children, clad in their gold-and-purple pinstriped uniforms, were on hand to see the bright green turf and bright foul lines. Michael Mays bent down to talk to a few of them, asking their names and if they knew who Willie Mays was.

“He was the greatest player who ever lived,” he told them. And now Fairfield once again has a field that lives up to its namesake.