SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 23, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — The Salt Lake Bees will look a little different when they take the field Saturday night.
The Bees will be wearing throwback uniforms at Smith’s Ballpark as a tribute to the Occidentals, an all-Black baseball team that called Salt Lake City home from 1906 to 1913.
Salt Lake will don white jerseys with black lettering and numbering trimmed in orange, matching what a newspaper at the time reported the Occidentals wore while emerging as one of the best barnstorming teams in the Western U.S.
The first 2,500 fans at Smith’s Ballpark also will receive a Salt Lake Occidentals pennant.
The Occidentals consistently played great baseball and attracted large crowds in their first two seasons as they barnstormed along the Wasatch Front, playing teams from Utah County and Idaho, the Salt Lake Bees stated in a news release.
A local businessman put together an organized baseball league in 1908, though the Occidentals weren’t initially included because one of the teams didn’t want to play against an all-Black team. They later joined the league as a replacement when the Fort Douglas team folded during the league’s first season.
In 1909, the Occidentals won the Utah State League and followed up the next season with a 14-4-2 record against some of the best teams in California.
It was much more difficult off the field for the Occidentals, who regularly endured racial slurs and taunts from both fans and newspaper reporters at the time.
Despite those struggles, the Occidentals drew crowds of more than 3,000 in Salt Lake City. One of the team’s most famous fans was heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, who umpired a game for the Occidentals while visiting Salt Lake.
The tribute to the Occidentals is part of Major League Baseball‘s “The Nine” initiative, which celebrates and honors Black baseball pioneers.
Salt Lake hosts the Sugar Land Space Cowboys at 6:35 p.m. Saturday at Smith’s Ballpark, 77 W. 1300 South. Postgame fireworks also are planned.
