A wedding brought my family to Mobile, Alabama, for the weekend. While time did not permit many baseball adventures, we did carve out just enough of a Saturday morning to check out two landmarks of Hank Aaron’s Mobile.
First up on our tour was the Hammer’s childhood home, which for several years doubled as a museum. Though the Baseball Map had this landmark located at Hank Aaron Stadium, Mobile’s minor league ballpark, I was glad to have queried SABR local Patrick Bone in advance.
In fact, the Aaron house no longer resides at the park but instead in the Aaron family’s old Toulminville neighborhood, outside the Mobile Police Department’s Third Precinct where it sits indefinitely closed and inaccessible to the public.
I don’t think this is the city’s permanent plan for the landmark. At the moment I think there is simply no plan. Personally I have no idea what it would cost in terms of dollars and time to give the museum a more permanent home and open it to the public. Still, I have to imagine some combination of private and public support would be out there the second the city asked.
Anyone wondering why the house left its ballpark location in the first place would quickly find the answer upon pulling up to 755 Bolling Brothers Blvd.
The ballpark, like its former tenants, the Bay Bears, are no more. Instead we have the Rocket City Trash Pandas up in Madison, Alabama, and a whole lotta land for sale.
Fortunately, there are still some signs of the Hammer, for however short a time they’ll survive vandals, scavengers, or a next owner’s future plans. Though inaccessible by car, a short walk takes you to the front of the stadium where an Aaron stand-up and ground site marker are quickly found situated on a well manicured patch of grass.
Here is a close-up of the marker itself, which honors the five Hall of Famers born in Mobile: Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, and Ozzie Smith.
On the other side of the circular patch of grass are individual plaques for these same five Mobile legends. (Though of interest to nobody but me, I can’t help but remark here that the first plaque honors Leroy Robert Paige, and the wedding that brought us here was that of Robert and Paige.)
The landscaping of this patch of grass along with the excellent condition of the plaques definitely belies what becomes apparent upon approaching the stadium entrance. So much for the once grand Hank Aaron poster that greeted visitors!
And what of the “Hank Aaron Stadium” marquee once perched above the entrance? My wife’s keen eyes spotted it unceremoniously ditched behind a gazebo.
Here are the poster and marquee in better days.
Landmark czars Racanelli and Kamka will have to let us know if the ballpark’s Hall of Fame keeps its status given that one can no longer enter but can peep some plaques through the fence. Here are the plaques for Ben Davis and Kevin Towers, for example. About eight such plaques are visible in all.
Continuing past the entrance, you are able to see the back of the stadium’s scoreboard, which I’ll regard generously as the last of the site’s highlights, before returning to the main road.
More or less going 0 for 2 on my pilgrimage to the birthplace of a baseball demigod, I couldn’t help but grapple with a single thought.
How do you put the Hammer’s name on something and let it die?
That evening we took our seats in the pew as Robert and Paige prepared to wed. Father Jones, in fairness just doing his job, reminded us we were all sinners. As Henry Aaron’s Mobile landmarks stood somewhere between dormant and dying, the truth of these words, for the very first time, hit me and left a mark.
The Hardball Voyager 