When the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals meet at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., next Thursday, the two teams will honor an important part of baseball's past.
The two MLB teams will sport Negro League throwback jerseys for the historic game, with the Giants paying tribute to the San Francisco Sea Lions and the Cardinals wearing the uniform of the St. Louis Stars.
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It was announced last June that Game 1 of San Francisco's three-game series against St. Louis would take place at Rickwood Field -- the former home of the Birmingham Black Barons, who Giants legend Willie Mays played for in the Negro Leagues from 1948 to 1950.
The Sea Lions were a Negro League baseball team in the West Coast Negro Baseball League, based in San Francisco, in 1946. Following the collapse of the league, the Sea Lions played as an independent barnstorming team. The Giants have honored the Sea Lions numerous times by wearing their jerseys over the years, most recently during the 2023 MLB season.
Despite the team's Sea Lion moniker, their jerseys feature a bear -- a result of using recycled uniforms from the now-disbanded San Francisco Cubs organization.
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The game at the historic Rickwood Field comes just a couple of weeks after Negro League statistics officially were integrated into MLB record books, ensuring a key part of professional baseball's past is remembered moving forward.
As the Giants and Cardinals face off next week in their throwbacks, it will serve as yet another reminder of just how far baseball has come.
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