Sports historian Allan Barra takes us on an unforgettable journey to Birmingham, Alabama, where America's oldest ballpark, would look--were it not for the new paint job--almost identical to when the gates first opened almost a century ago. Evoking such classics as Shoeless Joe and The Boys of Summer, Rickwood Field recalls a simpler bygone era when a weathered ballpark was, and still is, a rare beacon of hope. --From publisher description.