Bases Loaded
Jimmy Piersall is the special guest at this year’s Rickwood Classic.
The 13th annual Rickwood Classic will be played May 28 at historic Rickwood Field, the oldest baseball park in America. This year’s game will pit the Birmingham Barons against the Jacksonville Suns, and the yearly tradition of vintage uniforms will continue. The Barons will wear 1951-52 gray uniforms, with red and black caps emblazoned with the Red Sox “B” logo. The Suns will sport 1967-era uniforms from the days when Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan pitched for Jacksonville.Rickwood Field has hosted an astonishing list of baseball legends, such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Dizzy Dean, and Reggie Jackson. However, Jimmy Piersall, a lesser-known player whose peculiar story earned him a different kind of fame, will be the featured V.I.P. at this year’s event. Piersall was an outfielder with the Birmingham Barons when the team was a farm team for the Boston Red Sox. He was portrayed by Anthony Perkins in the film Fear Strikes Out, based on Piersall’s book of the same name. His personal and professional life comprise baseball’s most bizarre story.
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In 1952, after picking a fight with one of baseball’s most volatile figures, hothead Billy Martin (then a Yankees infielder) before a game, Piersall engaged in fisticuffs during the game with one of his own teammates in the Red Sox dugout. Piersall’s behavior soon led to his suspension and demotion to the minor leagues (the Barons). After arriving in Birmingham, he was kicked out of four games during his brief three weeks with the Barons. The fourth ejection was instigated by his squirting a water pistol on homeplate before striking out, then retreating to the grandstand roof to heckle the umpire. Three days later, the Red Sox organization checked Piersall into a mental institution in Massachusetts, where he spent the next two months. Two years after that, he was back in the Major Leagues, playing in the 1954 All-Star game for the Red Sox. Piersall continued to play well in the Major Leagues for almost two decades. He sometimes wore a Beatles wig and led outfield spectators in cheers during game lulls.
In 1963, Piersall was traded to the New York Mets, where he hit his 100th career home run. He honored the milestone by trotting around the bases facing backward. The Mets released him within weeks. He eventually found work as a radio commentator for the Chicago White Sox, working with legendary broadcaster Harry Caray. Piersall once tried to choke a reporter critical of the team after a game, then scuffled with the White Sox owner’s son. A year later, the team suspended him—before eventually firing him—for referring to White Sox players’ wives as “horny broads.”
In his autobiography The Truth Hurts, Piersall observes, “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. Whoever heard of Jimmy Piersall, until that happened?” He sums up life with a nod to his father. “I have not made an awful lot of friends in my lifetime,” Piersall said. “But my dad once told me that if you have too many friends you become a follower.”
The Rickwood Classic will be held Wednesday, May 28, at 12:35 p.m. Admission is $9. For details call 988-3200, or visit www.barons.com.