Minor League Baseball Plans Negro League Tributes in June

Dozens of Minor League Baseball teams will be holding Negro League tributes throughout the month of June as part of special activations across the sport leading up to two Major League Baseball games being played in Birmingham, Alabama.

On June 18, America’s oldest professional ballpark, Rickwood Field, will host a Double-A game between the Montgomery Biscuits and Birmingham Barons. This game, with Montgomery suiting up as the Gray Sox and Birmingham playing as the Black Barons, will kick off festivities that will culminate with a Major League game between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants on June 20.

The Barons have also planned another tribute — a Salute to the Negro Leagues — from June 13–15. On June 14, Birmingham will don Black Barons jerseys. On June 15, the club welcomes George Foster to Regions Field to take part in the Salute to the Negro Leagues. Foster was a five-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion with the Cincinnati Reds club best known as the “Big Red Machine.”

There are several other Negro League tributes planned across the Minor Leage Baseball landscape as reported by Rob Terranova of MiLB.com:

The Tulsa Drillers, Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, will become the T-Town Clowns on June 14. Beginning in 2010, the Tulsa Drillers have staged an annual tribute to the T-Town Clowns, a semi-pro entity from 1946–1965. Tulsa’s ONEOK Field is located in the city’s Greenwood District, a historic neighborhood that rose to prominence in the early 20th century as America’s “Black Wall Street.”

The Durham Bulls, Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, on June 14 will pay tribute to the former Negro League teams of Durham by donning special Durham Black Sox jerseys and hats. The Black Sox were one of several Negro Leagues teams that played in the city of Durham from the 1920s through 1963.

The Greenville Drive, High-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, will be the Greenville Black Spinners on June 15. The Greenville Black Spinners played at Mayberry Park, which sat beyond the outfield wall of Meadowbrook Park, which was built in the 1920s for black children at a time they were not allowed to play in the city’s segregated parks. The Drive will also be hosting a screening of The Other Boys of Summer, a documentary highlighting the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of Negro League Baseball and its players.

The Fresno Grizzlies, Single-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, will honor the Fresno Tigers on June 15, a team that competed in the six-team West Coast Negro League in 1946. The Grizzlies first played a game as the Tigers in 2022.

The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Triple-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins, will transform into the Jacksonville Red Caps on June 15. The Red Caps played in the Negro American League in 1938 and from 1941–1942 at Durkee Field in Jacksonville, led by the legendary Josh Gibson, who became the second Negro Leagues player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

The Salt Lake Bees, Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, will be the Salt Lake Occidentals on June 21. The Occidentals were formed in Salt Lake in 1906 and joined the otherwise all-white Utah State League in 1908; the following season it took home a league championship.

The Hartford Yard Goats, Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, will turn into the Hartford Schoolboys on June 29. For the second straight season, the Yard Goats will honor legendary Negro Leagues pitcher and Hartford native Johnny “Schoolboy” Taylor. In his senior year at Hartford’s Bulkeley High School in 1934, Taylor set a Connecticut state record with 25 strikeouts in a single game against New Britain High School before he joined the semi-pro Hartford Twilight Baseball League.