The East-West Classic is returning in 2025.
Major League Baseball announced on Tuesday – what would’ve been Willie Mays’ 94th birthday – that the tribute to the Negro Leagues’ All-Star Games will be played on Juneteenth at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. General admission tickets are on sale now at mlb.com/rickwood.
Last year, the East-West Classic was put on by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y., over Memorial Day Weekend as the Hall celebrated the opening of its new exhibit on Black baseball, “Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball.”
This year, many of the same players will make the trip to the oldest professional ballpark in the United States and former home of the Birmingham Black Barons. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. CT on June 19. The game will last five innings or two hours, whichever comes first. MLB Network will be on the scene to film and produce an all-access program of the festivities to air on Sunday, June 29, at 1 p.m. ET. The program will also stream on MLB.com, MLB.TV and in the MLB App.
CC Sabathia, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 27, returns after participating in last year’s inaugural event. He’ll headline a West roster that includes Dellin Betances, Mike Cameron, Prince Fielder, Matt Kemp, Denard Span, BJ Upton and Adam Jones, who won last year’s pregame home run derby.
The East roster features Ryan Howard, whose home run in the fifth inning gave the East a 5-4 victory in ’24. He’ll be joined by MLB Network contributors and former players Chris Young, Jake Peavy (an Alabama native) and Xavier Scruggs, as well as Dexter Fowler, Curtis Granderson, Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield.
The 30 players combined to play more than 35,900 games over 390 MLB seasons, winning 10 World Series. They also won an MVP Award (Howard, 2006), two Cy Young Awards (Sabathia, 2007; Peavy, 2007), 18 Silver Sluggers and 23 Gold Gloves. Together, they account for 68 All-Star appearances.
In the morning before the exhibition game, MLB Together will join key community figures to help unveil a refurbished baseball and softball field at Willie Mays Park in nearby Fairfield, the Hall of Famer’s hometown. The field had deteriorated over the years and become unusable, and the Winter Meetings charity auction last December helped raise funds for its rehabilitation. It will be available for use for baseball and softball by community partners such as Miles College, A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club, local NIKE RBI, Little League, and other youth groups.
The festivities at Rickwood Field will begin with a home run derby at noon CT, with Jones looking to defend his crown. His competitors will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Negro Leagues’ East-West All-Star Game was first played in 1933 at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, continuing annually – sometimes with two games a year – through 1962. Future Hall of Famers like Cool Papa Bell, Ray Brown, Andy Cooper, Leon Day, Martín Dihigo, Bill Foster, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Minnie Miñoso, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson and Willie Wells played in the game over the years.