Saints vs. Sinners: How teams from church and prison met on Rickwood Field
Watch full special - "Rickwood Field: Return to Glory"
Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, is no stranger to interesting games. And perhaps one of the strangest matches ever played happened in 1938.
Saint Elias Catholic Church, with their team nicknamed "The Saints," took on inmates from the Kilby Correctional Facility in a game on what's now known as "America's Oldest Ball Park." This game was also not their first time meeting.
Earlier that year, the inmates beat "The Saints" in a game at the prison. The team was rewarded a trip to play at Rickwood for having a good record.
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On Sept. 2, 1938, Miss Birmingham Mickey Oxford threw out the first pitch as Kilby's "Lefty Wilson" started the game.
He was in the middle of a five-year sentence in the state, then Wilson went on to serve a 100-year sentence in Georgia for robbery.
Wilson gave up runs early, prompting one newspaper to say, "Put him in a dark room and give him a pistol, and he's not afraid of the devil, but put him out on a baseball field before a lot of people, and he's as soft as velvet."
The game would eventually end in a tie.
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