Mobile Alabama Honors Mobilia With Hall of Fame Courtyard

The city of Mobile, Alabama is the birthplace of five ballplayers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. They include Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith and Billy Williams. These men grew up on the city’s baseball fields and were molded by its rich history of professional baseball in the Negro Leagues.

When the National League integrated in 1950, professional baseball in the town ended for a while until the Mobile Bears were revived in 1997 at Henry Aaron Stadium. The ballpark was named for Major League Home Run king Hank Aaron and is the home of the BayBears, a Double-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres.

In the heyday of the Negro Leagues, the stadium was called Monroe Park and was nicknamed “the Coney Island of the South.” It became such a popular destination that local officials were able to successfully lobby the state legislature to allow baseball to be played on Sunday.

Now the city is taking steps to honor its legacy of baseball with a Hall of Fame Courtyard in Cooper Riverside Park, which will feature statues of all five Mobilians in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Michigan-based sculptor Brett Grill, who has sculpted presidents, politicians, sports figures and other notables, will be designing and casting the nine-foot-tall bronze statues of Aaron, Paige, McCovey, Smith and Williams. The statues are expected to be completed by the end of 2022.