Major League Baseball will play its first regular-season game in Alabama on Thursday.
History will be made when the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals face off at Rickwood Field, but Willie Mays won\'t be in attendance.
Rickwood Field is the oldest still-existing professional ballpark in the United States. It\'s best known for being the home of the Negro Leagues\' Birmingham Black Barons in the early-mid 20th century, a franchise that produced Satchel Paige, Mule Suttles and Willie Mays.
Mays, now 93 years old, revealed in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle that he will not be attending Thursday\'s contest.
\"I wish I could come out to Rickwood Field this week to be with you all and enjoy that field with my friends. Rickwood\'s been part of my life for all of my life. Since I was a kid. It was just \'around the corner there\' from Fairfield [the town where Mays went to high school], and it felt like it had been there forever. Like a church. The first big thing I ever put my mind to was to play at Rickwood Field. It wasn\'t a dream. It was something I was going to do,\" Mays said.
\"I was going to work hard to be one of the Birmingham Black Barons and play ball at Rickwood Field. That\'s what I did. It was my start. My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was IT -- everything I wanted. I\'d like to be there, but I don\'t move as well as I used to. So I\'m going to watch from my home. But it will be good to see that. I\'m glad that the Giants, Cardinals and MLB are doing this, letting everyone get to see pro ball at Rickwood Field. Good to remind people of all the great ball that has been played there, and all the players. All these years and it is still here. So am I. How about that?\"