Mobile joined the SA in 1908 as the Sea Gulls, but changed its name to the Bears in 1918, and the nickname stuck.
Almost exactly 13 years later, in July 1944, the Bears returned to Mobile when the Knoxville Smokies franchise shifted back from Tennessee.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the club was a longtime farm system affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then the Cleveland Indians.
The Bears played in 5,000-seat Hartwell Field located on Virginia Street in midtown.
The Bears won the Dixie Series, a postseason interleague championship between the champions of the Southern Association and the Texas League, in 1922 and 1955.