Allen Harvey Woodward

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Allan Harvey "Rick" Woodward (September 16, 1876 – November 23, 1950) was an American businessman and baseball team owner. He was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, to Joseph Hersey Woodward and Martha Burt Metcalfe Woodward. In 1881 his father and uncle started the Woodward Iron Company in Bessemer, Alabama.

Woodward studied at the University of the South from 1892 to 1895, where he played catcher for the college baseball team. He left school when his grades suffered from his focus on baseball. He then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1896 to 1899, earning a degree in mining engineering, while also gaining business experience with his family’s company.

He rose through the ranks at Woodward Iron Company, becoming general superintendent in 1899 and president in 1918 after his father’s death. During World War I, he served on the War Industries Board on the Pig Iron, Iron Ore, and Lake Transportation subcommittees. In 1921, during a railway strike, he personally ran a locomotive to help demonstrate the company’s support; his train was the first to move over the line after the strike.

Woodward was also deeply involved in baseball. He managed the Woodward Iron Company baseball team and, in late 1909, bought the Birmingham Barons, a local minor league team. In 1910 he built Rickwood Field, named for him, the first steel-and-concrete stadium in the South and the first of its kind for a minor league team. Woodward was an unusually hands-on owner, often dressing in uniform and insisting on throwing the opening pitch in some games.

Under his ownership, the Barons enjoyed success, finishing first in the Southern Association five times, second three times, and third nine times, and they won the Dixie Series in 1929 and 1931. Many Barons players went on to the major leagues. Financial difficulties led Woodward to sell the team in 1938 to Ed Norton. He also served as vice-president of the Birmingham Baseball Association and the Southern Association of Baseball Clubs, and held several leadership roles in other businesses and railways.

He married Annie Hill Jemison on November 1, 1904, and they had five children: Eugenia, Marti, Ann, Joseph Harvey, and Allan Harvey Jr. Allan Harvey "Rick" Woodward died on November 23, 1950, in Birmingham, Alabama.