Who were the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons and Montgomery Gray Sox?

On Wednesday, Minor League Baseball revealed the jerseys for MiLB at Rickwood Field, which will feature the host Double-A Birmingham Barons playing as the Black Barons and the Montgomery Biscuits playing as the Gray Sox on June 18. The game is on the second of four days of events — including the Cardinals and the Giants in a Major League game on June 20 — that pay tribute to the Negro Leagues.

Over 110 years separate Rickwood Field’s opening from its revival. As Minor Leaguers from the White Sox and Rays prepare to dig in at the historic environs, here’s a look at the Negro Leagues franchises whose uniforms they’ll be wearing.

Who were the Birmingham Black Barons?

The first pro team to roster Hall of Famer and Birmingham-area native Willie Mays, the Black Barons were a Negro Leagues mainstay for decades, featuring numerous outstanding players over the history of the franchise. In addition to Rickwood Field being Mays’ first professional ballpark, at one time or another it also served as a stage for the talents of Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Mule Suttles and Willie Wells — who all donned the Black Barons uniform.

Playing their home games when the Minor Leagues’ all-white Barons were on the road, Birmingham reached the Negro Leagues World Series three times, drew crowds north of 8,000 fans when Paige toed the rubber.

The “Birmingham Barons” moniker dates back to the 1880s in recognition of the city’s industrial heritage as “coal barons.” And a team of Black baseball players were referred to as the Black Barons as early as 1908.

In 2020, the leagues the Black Barons played in from 1923-30 (Negro National League), 1932 (Negro Southern League) and 1937-48 (Negro American League) were officially recognized as Major League circuits.

Who were the Montgomery Gray Sox?

Existing in various iterations throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Gray Sox — also spelled as “Grey” Sox — were a frequent opponent of the Black Barons, meeting in both exhibition games as well as official Negro Southern League games on dozens of occasions over the years. Among notable franchise alumni was Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, who played for Montgomery in 1921 at the start of a Hall of Fame career.

Stearnes’ lone season with the Gray Sox was the year after the team joined the Negro Southern League, and his bat and play in right field helped Montgomery finished first in the South standings — the ’21 Gray Sox ultimately fell in the championship to the Nashville Elite Giants. But with that club, Stearnes beganhis development into arguably one of the best leadoff hitters in baseball history. From nearly 20 recorded season of playing professionally, Stearnes is credited with a .348 batting average and 531 extra-base hits at the Major League level.

“Cool Papa Bell said, ‘If Turkey is not in the Hall of Fame, then no one deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.’ That pretty much tells you how good Turkey Stearnes was,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, has said.

The Gray Sox remained members of the Negro Southern League in 1932, the season the circuit is recognized as being Major League level, as well as the season the Chicago Defender deemed Montgomery “one of the strongest teams in the league.”