Giants and Cardinals to wear Negro League uniforms for MLB at Rickwood Field

Next week the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals will play at Rickwood Field, in Birmingham, Alabama. Rickwood Field remains oldest professional baseball field in the United States, and was the former home of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro League.

And the teams will be wearing Negro League throwback uniforms as part of the celebration.

The Black Barons played their Negro League home games at Rickwood Field from 1924 through 1960. One of baseball’s greatest-ever players, Willie Mays, began his professional career on that field with the Black Barons in 1948. Mays played with Birmingham played with them before beginning his legendary MLB career as a member of the New York Giants in 1951.

Rickwood Field was also the site of the final Negro League World Series game in October 1948, which saw Mays’ Black Barons drop a five-game series to the Homestead Grays in five games.

On Tuesday Major League Baseball announced that the Giants and Cardinals will be wearing throwback jerseys for the game, paying tribute to the San Francisco Sea Lions and St. Louis Stars. While the Stars were a member of the Negro League, the Sea Lions played in the West Coast Negro Baseball League, which lasted just one season, in 1946:

Prior to the MLB game at Rickwood Field the legendary park will host a minor league game between the Birmingham Barons, an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, and the Montgomery Biscuits, an affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. That game will honor the Birmingham Black Barons, and both teams will also be wearing throwback uniforms:

The Barons will pay tribute to the Black Barons, while the Biscuits will honor the Montgomery Gray Sox.

When the Cardinals and Giants square off, it will be the first MLB game ever played in Alabama.