Here's to the Sea Lions and....

 6/8

San Francisco Sea Lions

With the Warriors still in the NBA Finals, I decided to stick with the Bay Area for my weekly hats off/hats on…

We’ve previously explored Negro League baseball team like the great Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs and New York Cubans. Today we head to the west coast and the little known San Francisco Sea Lions. They had one year, 1946.  And like many Negro League teams, had a name reminiscent of their white counterparts the

Pacific League San Francisco Seals.

But here’s the back story. In 2007, our family took a west coast college trip to look for a Schoo for our middle son. We flew to Seattle, made a stop in Portland and drove to San Francisco.  On August 16th, we went to the second most beautiful ballpark in the country, then known as Pac Bell, to see my hometown favorite Pittsburgh Pirates play the Giants. The shirt was a giveaway for African American Heritage night. The hat I had to track down later. 

This was also the summer of Barry Bonds pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record. This night, Bonds would hit a homer and the Pirates come back for 6 down in the 8th to win. Perfect in every way. Villainainized almost everywhere else because of his purported steroid use, Bonds was much loved in San Francisco. (“No surprise there” says Clyde.) With for memories of Bonds as a rising young star in Pittsburgh and the team that came within one out of the World Series, I still was a Bonds fan.

Some  local company  distributed cards for to be redeemed for a pin bearing a number when Bonds homered. So before heading to the airport we stoped to collect our “Bonds 758”  pins. One may still be in a box somewhere. He would end with 762. And I would love to see him in the Hall of Fame. 

So hats on for the San Francisco Sea Lions and hats off for Barry Bonds. And go Warriors….