A gondola ride along the canals of Venice, Italy, is a romantic experience. It would kill the romantic and historic vibe, in my opinion, if the gondolier fired up a big outboard motor and instead of singing, cranked up a boom box playing Dean Martin’s greatest hits.

The point is: Romantic history and tradition must be cherished, not trampled.

So, please, Major League Baseball, don’t schlock up Rickwood Field for the June 20 game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.

Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., is the oldest professional baseball park in the world, opened in 1910. The Giants-Cardinals game is a tribute to the Negro Leagues and to baseball history. It will be — or at least it could be — a sentimental and educational trip back through time.

But it has to be done right, and MLB seems to be veering down the wrong path. Fortunately, there’s plenty of time for it to heed some heartfelt advice.

Worth noting: The Chronicle has a proprietary interest in this game. In 2020, Chronicle ballscribe John Shea and Willie Mays co-wrote a splendid book, “24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid.” The book pulled up memories of Rickwood, where a high school kid named Willie Mays broke into pro ball, leading his Birmingham Black Barons to the last Negro Leagues World Series in ’48.

The Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins read “24” and in 2021 suggested in his column that MLB play a regular-season game at historic Rickwood. A year after that, MLB and the folks in Birmingham began discussing such a game. Nobody at MLB is crediting Shea or Jenkins, and the Chronicle’s Boys of Summer are not clamoring for credit, but connect the dots.

Anyway, the game is on, and that’s fantastic. It’s a great way to honor Mays, Negro Leagues history, and the old days of baseball. But some of MLB’s plans are a bit heavy-handed. So, please, MLB, consider these suggestions:

• Dump the giant video screen. I’ve been to Rickwood, and when you sit in the ancient grandstands, the defining feature of the ballpark is the big, ornate, manually operated outfield scoreboard. A huge temporary video screen looming over the outfield walls would kill the visual impact of the scoreboard, and would jar nostalgia-hungry fans right back to 2020.

This is such a bad idea that it should be enshrined in the Bad Idea Hall of Fame. You’re trying to set a mood here, MLB. The most effective way to kill it is to assault the fans with the Kiss Cam, cornball videos, esoteric stats, player mug shots and, worse — much worse — ads. Yes, your video screen will be a moneymaker … and a mood-breaker.

• No PA music. This isn’t Dodger Stadium. Let the sounds of baseball be the musical soundtrack to this game.

• Don’t pad the outfield walls. OSHA will jump all over me on this, but nothing says nostalgia and old-time baseball like quaint ads for local businesses painted on the outfield walls. Leave the vintage ’40s and ’50s ads, and forget the pads.

I know, the Giants just lost Jung Hoo Lee and Austin Slater to Oracle Park outfield-wall injuries. Lee got hung up on top of the fence, and Slater crashed into the chain-link fence. Padding would have made no difference.

Shea reminded me that Mays, in a quarter-century of pro baseball, including three seasons at Rickwood, patrolling the outfield with a vengeance, went on the injured list one time, in his final season, at age 42. Tell the guys to play like Willie.

• Rock the BBB unis. The plan is for the Giants to wear San Francisco Sea Lions uniforms, a tribute to the short-lived (1946) team in the West Coast Baseball Association, an all-Black league. Nice, but wrong.

Willie’s team, and Birmingham’s team, and Rickwood’s team, was the Black Barons. That name carries great dignity, and is a stark reminder of the time when there were two separate but unequal baseball worlds.

One nice touch would be for the Giants to wear the BBB unis, and the Cardinals to wear the unis of the Birmingham Barons, the city’s longtime minor-league team. During all the decades that the white Barons and the Black Barons shared the ballpark, on alternating weekends, the two teams never met, because of highly restrictive Jim Crow laws. Let’s make history.

• Please make sure the “enhanced VIP seating” that is part of the Rickwood upgrade for this game is devoted exclusively to the invited former Negro Leagues players, about 160 of them. No corporate fat cats or baseball execs need apply.

Put the pseudo VIPs, and the commissioner, out in the 500-seat section of the right-field bleachers that, in the old days at (white) Barons’ games, was the seating area for Black fans.

• Scrap the new temporary clubhouses. The old clubhouses are tiny and cramped, but why should the players be deprived of the full old-time Rickwood experience? If those old clubhouses were good enough for Willie Mays, they’re good enough for you fellas.

Through the years, a Birmingham organization called Friends of Rickwood has kept the old yard standing with repairs and fixes, always with the goal of preserving the historical integrity of the old yard.

Please, MLB, resist the temptation to go all Disneyland on rickety old Rickwood. This is a historic occasion, and a teaching moment — not a marketing opportunity.

Reach Scott Ostler: sostler@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @scottostler