This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado¡¯s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
PHOENIX -- Count manager Bob Melvin among those most excited for the Giants¡¯ game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., on June 20.
¡°We¡¯re really excited about that,¡± Melvin said. ¡°You know, Willie [Mays] played there, so that¡¯s something that everybody¡¯s extremely excited about, celebrating the Negro Leagues and all that transpired there.
¡°Personally, I played over a year there at Double-A with the Tigers, so I¡¯m excited about going back, too.¡±
Melvin played for the Birmingham Barons in 1982, '83 and '84, when Rickwood Field was their home ballpark. Asked what he remembered about the ballpark, there was no hesitation.
¡°I remember there used to be a Mello Yello sign in right-center field with a basket in it, and if you hit it in there, it was a hundred bucks," Melvin said. "And I made myself a hundred bucks one time."
I dug into the archives to see what information was out there on this home run basket, and I found an interesting blog entry from Benjamin Hill, a senior writer for MiLB.com. He was recapping the 2010 Rickwood Classic between the Tennessee Smokies and the Birmingham Barons, and he shared an email from a reader named Sam Hamm, who was a Birmingham bat boy in the early ¡®80s. From Hill's blog:
"In the ¡¯80s, there was a big Mello Yello (?) sign above the right field fence with a basketball hoop attached. A player hitting a ball in the hoop would win some prize. I¡¯m pretty sure that Mike Laga did it once in ¡¯82 or ¡¯83. I remember Mark Smith hitting one that summer during BP, and everyone giving him a hard time because it did not count."
Told this anecdote, Melvin did recall Laga¡¯s hit and laughed at the Smith BP story, but he was bummed that his bucket homer wasn¡¯t mentioned.
¡°You couldn¡¯t find mine?!¡± Melvin exclaimed. ¡°I may still have the $100 check.¡±
Alas, due to limited Minor League home run bucket data from the 1980s, Melvin¡¯s accomplishment may have to exist only in legend.