Albert Belcher was not a man to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He was easy to smile, but like so many men who’d survived the Depression, he wasn’t given to tirades or jumping up and down with joy. It didn’t matter whether he’d just closed a deal on another trainload of lumber, or watched a ninth-inning rally by the Barons, or attended one of his children’s weddings… he was steady-Eddie, low-key, unflappable, reliable, and usually close-to-the-vest. That’s why it surprised his wife, Nell, and their friends to learn he’d coaxed Finley into agreeing to take the Barons to Hawaii if they won the championship. Some suspected he did it to one-up the ostentatious Finley. Although they were both rich and shared a love of baseball and Birmingham, their personalities were on opposite sides of the moon. Finley wasn’t afraid to wear a houndstooth hat and a green satin warm-up jacket; Belcher always looked as if he were on his way to a CPA convention. He would no more set up his own promotional tour than bark at the pitcher’s mound.
He did, however, appreciate Finley’s stepping up to offer the A’s as the Barons’ parent club. Given Birmingham’s troubles over the past year, as well as the uncertainty of how the city would respond to an integrated team, it was a ballsy move. When Belcher had approached other big-league franchises, they expressed concern. Finley jumped at the chance.
As much as anything else, Belcher worried that Finley’s considerable ego and penchant for hogging the news could lead to the two of them bumping heads down the road. They were both strong-willed, and each owned his own business, employed lots of people, and was used to doing things his own way.
On the morning of the opener, Belcher sat at his desk at Belcher Lumber, reading the news accounts of the big event. Although the game was given front-page coverage, as well as space in the sports section, the local writers tiptoed around the historical importance of the game, perhaps fearful of reminding readers of recent events, even though anybody in Birmingham who wasn’t aware of what was happening would had to have been vacationing on Neptune. The Birmingham News sports editor Benny Marshall cautiously put it this way:
It’s integrated baseball, the only kind of professional sport there is anywhere, anymore. Thus, this season opener is given a touch of history.
Only sportswriter Alf Van Hoose, the Barons’ beat writer for the Birmingham News, dared to contemplate the game’s importance:
Owner W. Albert Belcher has bet strongly that his town is ready again for the nation’s great summertime game, and he’s playing his hand with confidence.
Five of the 22 Barons are Negroes—and this will make history all the world will carefully watch.
It’s more than an ordinary occasion, and to label it a historic Birmingham sports day might not be too extravagant. Baseball, as you know, returns to Rickwood tonight, and for reasons not to dust off and re-run, the occasion will be noticed and checked from afar.
Outside the South, one could guess, more people will be interested in how things come out at Rickwood than any Legion Field football game in years.
To ensure the peace, Belcher had requested extra police protection, and as many as twenty additional officers were expected to be on hand for the opener. When Belcher was reminded that these policemen were from the same Birmingham police force that a year earlier, under the guidance of Bull Connor, had beaten black demonstrators and had deep connections with the Klan, he could only shrug.
Belcher and the Barons’ thirty-year-old general manager, Glynn West, sat in box seats behind the Baron dugout, anxiously eyeing the crowd making its way into Rickwood. It was a slow-arriving bunch, and both men looked concerned, despite advance sales.
Black fans entering the park hesitated when they came out of the tunnels and reached the concourse, not sure which way to go. In the sixty years of white Baron baseball, the chicken wire had always mandated where they should sit. But now the screen was gone, the bleachers stretching in uninterrupted rows across the tiered stands.
Out of habit, or maybe fear, many of the Barons’ black fans retreated to the right-field bleachers, where they’d always sat. Others, however, headed toward seats previously forbidden. Although perhaps not as bold as moving to the front of the buses in Montgomery a decade earlier, it was nonetheless an empowering moment.
All of the fans, black and white, were entering the park with a pack of Schick razor blades. It was an opening day promotion created by West, an idea he’d gotten attending a baseball convention over the winter.
“Is this a good idea?” asked Belcher.
“Whattya mean?”
“You’ve armed the crowd,” replied Belcher.
Sitting next to his wife, Nell, Belcher scanned the stands, taking note of the fifteen Birmingham police officers spread around the ballpark. He took comfort in their presence, although he still didn’t know what to make of Fletcher Hickman’s late-night visit and his promise that the KKK wouldn’t cause any problems. An usher approached.
“Mr. Belcher, you’ve got a phone call in the office. They said it’s urgent.”
Belcher entered the Barons’ front office and picked up the phone, listening to the muffled sound on the other end: “Y’all making a big mistake playing them niggers,” the voice said. “Don’t be surprised if something bad happens.”
And then the caller hung up.
Belcher stood frozen, staring at the wall, trying to figure his next move. Was this guy serious? It wasn’t the first phone threat he’d had in the months since announcing integrated baseball was coming to Birmingham. But it was the first one with people pouring into the ballpark.
The Barons’ president considered his options. He could go up to the press box and make an announcement to the crowd that there’d been a bomb threat and everybody needed to evacuate the ballpark as quickly as possible. That was the safe and prudent thing to do. He’d lived in Birmingham his whole life and knew what the KKK was capable of doing.
Or maybe he should go tell Finley and see what he said.
But then the business side of his brain kicked in. It would take at least a couple of hours for the police to search for a bomb, and by then most of the very large crowd of fans who had now settled into their seats would be long gone. He’d have to refund their money, and in the minor leagues, large crowds were rare gold.
He also knew that if he evacuated the park, it would be all over the news, and not just in Birmingham. Definitely not what the city needed. On the other hand, if there was a bomb and it went off, lives could be lost. And so could the season. Birmingham might not ever recover.
Slowly, he exited the office, pausing as he neared one of the policemen. He looked back over his shoulder and eyed a line of people a block long still queuing up to the ticket booth. Automobiles were searching for parking.
Taking a deep breath, he quickly returned to his box seat. “Who called you?” asked Nell.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “They hung up before I got there.”