Johnson: Did MLB Rickwood boost minority- and women-owned businesses?

Bernadine Birdsong confesses: She doesn’t know sports. Not even football, admits the owner of Michael’s, the elegant restaurant on Birmingham’s southside with a left-field home run view of Region’s Field. On this day, while relaxing on her back porch, she laughs: “Isn’t that a shame?” Not surprisingly, given the location of her business, baseball, of all the sports, “is the one I do kind of understand.” Birdsong certainly knows business. Knows why it is vital for small businesses such as hers to capitalize when major events come to the city. “It’s life-changing,” she says. “They’ll come in and have an impact in one week that it would have taken me a month to raise.” Last month, Major League Baseball descended upon Birmingham for several days of events surrounding MLB at Rickwood: A Salute to the Negro Leagues, which culminated with a regular-season game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. That week, Michael’s hosted two major MLB functions. On Wednesday, June 19, the two-tiered restaurant fed 150 people including Giants’ players and staff, as well as personnel from the FOX and MLB networks. The downstairs dining area was set up for player interviews that would be used on...