With all its history, Rickwood Field delivers an important first for Cardinals’ rookie

Inside the walls of a ballpark from which history seems to whisper from every corner, it’s surprising to find so many firsts dominating the landscape for the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Thursday, though, arriving at Rickwood Field brought with it important firsts for many, on top of the already significant weight of the first Major League Baseball game played at America’s oldest ballpark.

Thrown for a loop by a last-minute scratch of Kyle Gibson on Wednesday in Miami, the Cardinals reached down to Triple-A Memphis to promote right-hander Adam Kloffenstein to the active roster for the first time. Kloffenstein, whose mother grew up roughly 60 miles from Birmingham in Gadsden, Alabama, long had this game circled on the schedule, but as recently as Wednesday morning, felt like her son wouldn’t get the opportunity to be the first National League player to debut in the state of Alabama.

“I think the main emotion was just kind of, like, shock, and what was happening, and then obviously finding out I was coming here,” a grinning Kloffenstein said Thursday from the rigidly constructed tent serving as the team’s clubhouse this week. “I’ve been imagining it for 20 years, and I never imagined it being like this.”

Kloffenstein was just a few pitches into his regularly scheduled bullpen session when Memphis manager Ben Johnson came trotting out with “a little pep in his step.” After delivering the good news, Johnson told Kloffenstein to hustle; his 3 p.m. throwing session was giving way to a 5:30 p.m. flight.

“It happened pretty quick after that,” he said. “I threw a couple more [pitches], but they said, ‘hey, you’re probably going to need those tomorrow.’”

The next challenge, after getting packed and getting to the airport, was talking to his family and scrounging up tickets. With such limited availability, it was a much harder struggle than a regular game. Kloffenstein credited traveling secretary Ernie Moore with helping him find around a dozen tickets for his immediate family and some close friends who pledged years ago that they would make it to his debut, no matter where it happened to be.

“I called them,” Kloffenstein laughed, “and said, ‘hey, you always said…’ And they’re here.”

On the infield dirt, a veteran of 14 seasons and nearly 1,700 games, is Brandon Crawford. Thursday’s matchup between the temporarily rebranded St. Louis Stars and San Francisco Seals is his first matchup with the Giants, his hometown team with whom he spent the first 13 years of his big league career.

If that first matchup wasn’t jarring enough, Crawford was penciled into Thursday’s lineup at third base. It was his first start at any position other than shortstop, at which he’s started 1,541 games.

“Oli [Marmol] had mentioned to me that I might be playing third in Miami,” Crawford explained. “I was supposed to on Tuesday, but Masyn [Winn] wasn’t feeling well, so I ended up playing short. And then I don’t think I was originally supposed to play in this game at all, and then Nolan [Arenado] got hit by the pitch last night, so it’s funny how baseball works.”

Arenado took ground balls on the field Thursday but didn’t throw at full strength and didn’t take swings in the batting cage. His right elbow, which forced him from Wednesday’s series finale in Miami, was wrapped in a thick pad and bandage, and Marmol said it was unlikely he would be available for action before Saturday.

It fell to Crawford, then, to play his first game against what had been his only team under the most unusual of circumstances.

“A little bit of nervousness now that I’m playing third,” Crawford admitted. “All different kinds of emotions.”

As a long-time Giant, Crawford was able to develop a relationship with the legendary Willie Mays, whose death at age 93 on Tuesday night shifted the tenor of this week from a celebration of the Negro Leagues to an opportunity to honor Mays directly. Crawford’s father, a devotee of Bay Area baseball, passed on countless stories of Mays’s greatness, and those affected Crawford directly as he grew into a hometown hero at shortstop.

“Being able to develop a relationship with one of the best players ever, if not the best player ever, to hear about him growing up and you develop a relationship with him, it doesn’t seem real at first,” Crawford said.

“The more you talk to him and hear about all of these stories and how good of a person he was and just kind of find that out for yourself, it’s really cool.”

The development at Rickwood Field is not designed to be a one-time event for MLB. Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters at a community event Thursday morning that he would be open to return engagements here, a sentiment echoed by players on both teams. What is undoubtedly a fast trip and a disruption to the regular schedule has been embraced on both sides of the diamond, and the pure love of the game could be felt from the stadium walls as strongly as the old stories could.

“This will happen pretty quick, and then we’re on the plane right after it headed home,” Marmol said. “Just shedding light on the history of this field and people that aren’t educated on it, it just gives you an open door for, like, ‘what don’t I know about this?’ It’s a great opportunity for all of us.