Tonight’s Mariners game won’t be just their Sunday Night Baseball debut; the team will also debut their new Steelheads uniforms, created to honor the short-lived Negro Leagues team located in Seattle. The Mariners are the first MLB team to feature a historic Negro Leagues uniform as part of the club’s standard uniform rotation. The black and cream Steelheads jerseys will be worn on home Sunday games, replacing the royal blue, yellow and cream Sunday alternates that the team has worn for the past decade.
The Steelheads were part of the West Coast Negro Baseball Association, founded by Olympian Jesse Owens and Abe Saperstein (owner of the Harlem Globetrotters). Owens formed the Portland Rosebuds in Oregon, while Saperstein moved his barnstorming team the Cincinnati Crescents to Seattle and renamed them the Steelheads. The Steelheads played for just part of one year, 1946, playing their home games at Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium, where the Tacoma Rainiers played from 1938-1976. The Steelheads would play at Sick’s when the Rainiers were on the road.
Very little information exists about the Steelheads today, and what we do know is largely due to the efforts of local historian David Eskenazi. Kevin Martinez, Mariners President of Business Operations, said the Steelheads uniforms were reconstructed using one of the two available pictures of a player in a Steelheads uniform. (The second picture shows a catcher, making it impossible to make out uniform details.) The first time the Mariners wore the Steelheads jerseys, in a game against Kansas City in 1995 where the Royals wore the historic Monarchs jerseys, the jerseys were based on concepts rather than historical fact. Eskenazi devoted himself to finding photographs so the uniforms could be based in reality.
In lifting up the little-known Steelheads, the Mariners surprised even some of their own former players who are otherwise very well-versed in the more well-known Negro Leagues teams. Neither Mark McLemore nor Mike Cameron were with the team in 1995, so the Steelheads were new to them.
“I didn’t know anything about the Steelheads,” said Mark McLemore when the uniforms were unveiled at FanFest this winter. “Not before I actually put the jersey on to understand that that was a part of the dynamic of the Negro Leagues. So to be able to understand the history around that is very gratifying, because I understand that history is one of the reasons why I got a chance to play the game of baseball.”
“To be able to have some of the people in Seattle able to see that this once was, this is connected to that part of history, it’s very meaningful.”
Mike Cameron also sees the connection between the present and the past, both locally and on a national level, and appreciates the Mariners for keeping that link alive and visible.
“I think it’s very important because it’s not just history, it’s American history,” said Cameron. “And not all organizations do it, see it as an important part of history, and the Mariners are one of the organizations that do. And that’s very appreciated, because it could be easily lost in history. Not talked about, not cared about.
So for the Mariners to be able to recognize that, that’s great, and that’s part of what makes this such a first class organization.”
Current Mariner Josh Naylor was honored to be chosen to debut the jersey back at FanFest in January.
“That’s one of the coolest uniforms I’ve ever worn,” Naylor said. “It’s so cool. Having the privilege of wearing it, it’s awesome.”
In addition to wearing the jerseys on home Sundays, the Mariners announced a commitment of $500,000 to local Black-led baseball and softball organizations and community initiatives. Part of the revenue from all Steelheads merchandise sold, as well as the revenue from the team’s 50/50 raffles on Steelheads Sunday, will go to the programs.
“Through the Steelheads Community Fund, we will celebrate the legacy of the Steelheads, while continuing our long-standing effort to advance access to baseball and softball and well-being for underserved communities in our region,” said Martinez.