Salt Lake Bees to honor 'hidden gem of a history story' with alternate team name via KSLcom cwilliamsKSL
A man named Frank Black eventually became the team's manager by 1908 and that's where most of what's known about the Occidentals is documented. As Williams found in his own deep dive, at least one team threatened to quit the state league if an all-Black team was included, and the team was often subject to slurs.
The team won so much that players claimed themselves to be the champions of the state by the end of the season, which other clubs disagreed with. This led to an impromptu playoff, in which the Occidentals dominated the field. They defeated the Yampa smelter team in October of that year, settling the debate once and for all. TheTheir season didn't end there, though.
Some members of the team ended up playing on other Black teams in the 1910s and 1920s. It wasn't until 1947, more than three decades after the Occidentals disbanded, that Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier.The Occidentals are now set to return to Salt Lake City for the first time in over a century Saturday night, something that has been a few years in the making.
Williams combed through various newspaper descriptions to piece together an idea of what the uniforms looked like, at least at one time. They featured white ballcaps with no logos, along with a white uniform with black lettering and orange trim. The Bees' updated uniform tacks on the team's S.L. initials on the cap, as well as the current Bees logo on the sleeve, to add a bit of flare to the design.
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