Photo by Didi Crandall, New Memphis
Paula Raiford (middle), Al Kapone (red shirt), and friends gather at AutoZone Park for 901 Day.
Al Kapone marveled at the resolute approach of Mark Goodfellow — you know, of It’s All Good Auto Sales — toward kickball. “He kinda made me more intense about it — he was definitely there to win.” It’s been a week and some change since the Local Celebrity Kickball Game at Exposure on 901 Day, held at AutoZone Park on Friday evening, September 1, and Kapone was clicking through his remembered highlight reel.
Local activist, #takeemdown901 organizer, and kickball player Tami Sawyer mentioned that chef Kelly English “cracked me up because he was taking the game as seriously as if we were playing on ESPN.”
And WMC-TV anchor Joe Birch recalled being “greeted at AutoZone Park by none other than fellow kickball player Frayser Boy, who complimented my specialty Redbirds jersey: ‘That’s a dope shirt.’”
Every city has its local celebrities, the household names you might just happen upon while echolocating your car in the Kroger parking lot. But it’s not every city that sees its household names participating in a middle-school phys-ed activity, in public, just because someone asked nicely.
The game may sound like the set-up to a joke, but some of the celebrities sauntered onto the field with the same intensity they bring to their commitment to Memphis.
Others, less so: Bianca Phillips of Crosstown Concourse reported that she is “terrible at team sports,” and “pretty much just stood in the outfield and waited for Kelly English to yell at me when I messed up.”
In Memphis, on September 1 — otherwise known as 901 Day, an area-code salute to the city — a new tradition has emerged: inviting local celebrities to come play kickball on a baseball diamond. And in characteristic 901 “why not?” fashion, not only do celebrities – from rap artists to chefs to writers to opera singers — agree to participate, they talk about their participation as a way of honoring and celebrating Memphis.
Honoring Memphis and celebrating Memphis are at the heart of 901 Day, which was marked again this year by a free event held at AutoZone Park and hosted by New Memphis.
Called Exposure on 901 Day, the event is intended to remind Memphians new and native alike how magnetic and dynamic our city can be — while also providing an opportunity to connect with ways to get involved in city life.
To that end, while the kickball game devolved into a curious blend of hilarity, histrionics, and bloodlust on the field, the concourse level of AutoZone Park swarmed with more than 150 local organizations who applied for free spaces to present their work to the thousands of attendees. Look left: aerial artists practicing lifts. Look right: pottery being spun on a wheel. Look straight ahead: information about Tennessee’s new online voter registration platform.
The only stipulations for organizations approved for space at the event were that they should offer some way for attendees to get involved — and they couldn’t come to sell stuff.
Presence at the event by the American Red Cross - Mid-South was arranged well in advance, but the Red Cross was made more prominent on the concourse as a way to guide attendees toward ways to contribute to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.
Volunteer Odyssey was on hand to match people with enriching volunteer experiences. Caroline Borron of Volunteer Odyssey observed, “A lot of people want to give back but don’t know where to start. We met a father who wanted to volunteer, but didn’t know where he’d find the time with three kids at home.” The organization connected this harried father to volunteer outlets that welcome participation from the entire family.
Ned Canty attended Exposure to represent Opera Memphis, which showcased their 30 Days of Opera program. While Canty and his fellow opera singers were performing — yes, opera at a baseball stadium during a kickball game: welcome to Memphis — he noticed a woman with a very young girl who stopped to listen.
The mother was moving toward the exit — but her toddler, Canty says, “Would. Not. Let. Her. Even better, I tweeted a pic of it, and the woman saw it! She proceeded to post two more pics with what her daughter was saying: ‘But Mommy, they’re not finished singing yet!’”
Perhaps the mother has a future Nikola Printz on her hands — Printz being the Opera Memphis singer who, while dressed as a 1950s bombshell, “kicked the stuffing out of the ball,” according to Canty. Again: why not?
A way to reach the “diverse community in attendance” is how Jeremie Serrano of Latino Memphis saw Exposure on 901 Day. “This truly celebrates what we feel Memphis is and what we aim to be, as well as make people aware of what’s going on in the Latinx community,” Serrano commented.
And Fenton Wright of The Consortium MMT saw Exposure as a way to further a mission “to create a viable music industry in the City of Memphis through talent development and community building.” Wright recalls a particular moment when a small performance The Consortium organized “turned into a jam session when local celebrity Ekpe sat in and played flute as our ‘Emerging Stars’ accompanied him.”
Meanwhile, in the kickball dugout, the local celebrities were joshing each other, taking selfies to share the 901 Day moment with their social-media followers, and calling for more beer. (No surprise, they seemed to favor local brews over electrolyte water. Celebrities: they really are just like the rest of us.)
In breaks between innings, the Beale Street Flippers took charge of the show, demonstrating their acrobatic skills flawlessly, just like it was halftime at a Grizz game. And speaking of the Grizz, this year’s first “pitch” was kicked out by the Grizz Scholars — high-performing middle-school boys of color being prepared for success in high school and beyond.
New Memphis presents Exposure on 901 Day as a sort of train station where all the routes running have room for new passengers eager to get on board. And all the rides are free.
The event is supported by a host of sponsors — local companies that understand the value of a connected, empowered, energized Memphis community. For the second year in a row, Independent Bank backed the event as its title sponsor, and representatives from Independent Bank attended the event to introduce attendees to a bank that, like Memphis, is “independent-minded and not afraid to do things a little differently.” Contemporary Media, Inc., was a media partner for the event.
Anne Traverse is the communications specialist for New Memphis.
For other images from 901 Day, visit the New Memphis Facebook page.
