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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Frank Marsh remembers smashing a home run over the baby blue  “Princeton” sign at historic Rickwood Field with the bases loaded when he played for the Birmingham Black Barons.

Memories and baseball were plentiful Wednesday at the west Birmingham park, home of the Rickwood Classic baseball game.

The Birmingham Barons defeated the Chattanooga Lookouts by a score of 4-3. Prior to the start of the game, about 40 former members from Negro League teams were honored. Marsh was among the honorees.

The game is a fundraiser for the Friends of Rickwood, the nation’s oldest active baseball park. A three-piece band entertained the crowd between innings, and the players dressed in uniforms in the style of the 1961 teams, in honor of Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry’s last full season in the minor leagues. Perry was on hand for the festivities celebrating the park that opened in 1910.

For eight decades, the Bir­mingham Barons were the main tenant at the park. In the early years, the Black Barons also played there.

The Birmingham Black Barons were the oldest team in Professional Negro League baseball history, ac­cording to Dr. Layton Revel, the head of the Center for Negro League Baseball Re­search, and director of the reunion’s events of the past week.

“The Birmingham Black Barons go back to the early teens and 20s in the Negro Southern League and the Negro National League,” he said.

The game also served as a reunion for former Negro League players.

“I’m born and raised from Birmingham,” Roger Brown, presi­dent of the Alabama Negro League Association, said. “It’s fascinating. I’m meet­ing people today that I hadn’t seen in the last 40 or 50 years.”

Brown played for the Birmingham Black Barons as a shortstop and third baseman from 1957-1960.

“I love the game,” Brown said. “It didn’t matter who we played, where we played or what. It was just the joy of being out there.”

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