Birmingham Black Barons were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues of the United States from 1920 to 1962. The Negro leagues were for Black players, who were barred from playing alongside white players because of racial segregation . The Black Barons played their home games at Rickwood Field in Birmingham , Alabama . The Black Barons shared the stadium with the all-white Birmingham Barons minor league team.
The Black Barons were originally known as the Birmingham Stars. The Stars were among eight teams included in the creation of the Negro Southern League (NSL) in 1920. The NSL was a minor league affiliated with the Negro National League (NNL), also formed in 1920, the top professional baseball organization for Black players at the time. A few years later, the team—renamed the Black Barons—became part of the NNL. Early Black Barons stars included the pitchers Bill Foster and Satchel Paige and the slugger George “Mule” Suttles. All three players were later inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame .
The Black Barons joined the Negro American League (NAL) at its creation in 1937 as a rival to the NNL. Birmingham won the NAL pennant in 1943, 1944, and 1948. Each time, however, the Black Barons lost the Negro World Series to the NNL champion Homestead Grays . Willie Mays , who would go on to stardom with the New York (and later San Francisco) Giants , played his first professional season with the Black Barons at the age of 17 in 1948.
After the integration of Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1947, MLB teams signed star players from the Negro leagues, sending many Black teams into decline. The NNL folded, but the NAL and the Black Barons continued through the 1950’s. By the early 1960’s, the Negro leagues were much more loosely organized, and many teams—including the Black Barons—had essentially become “barnstorming” ball clubs, playing mostly on the road where and when they could. The Black Barons played their final games as a team in 1962.
