Wenatchee AppleSox baseball players, dressed in "throwback Thursday" jerseys with the name of the Wenatchi tribe in front, congratulate Joichiro Oyama after he won this year's Tommy Watanabe Award. The tribal name is translated as "The people in between." The award was presented to Oyama before their game with Kamloops on Thursday.
Wenatchee AppleSox baseball players, dressed in "throwback Thursday" jerseys with the name of the Wenatchi tribe in front, congratulate Joichiro Oyama after he won this year's Tommy Watanabe Award. The tribal name is translated as "The people in between." The award was presented to Oyama before their game with Kamloops on Thursday.
WENATCHEE — Before it had the AppleSox, the city of Wenatchee had the Chiefs, a minor league baseball team founded in 1937 that operated until 1965.
And before there was a city of Wenatchee, there was the Wenatchi, the tribe of Native Americans to which the town owes its name. Many Wenatchi descendants continue to live on the Colville Reservation and across North Central Washington.
This year, the AppleSox are rolling out a new commemorative jersey design in honor of the Wenatchi and the 85th anniversary of the Chiefs’ founding. The team is wearing the new “throwback Thursday” jerseys for the July 21 and July 28 home games. The jerseys, which will replace the previous Chiefs-inspired throwback uniform, are a collaboration with the Colville Tribal Language Program and Colville Casinos.
The front of the jerseys displays the word “Šnp̓əšqʷáw̓šəxʷ” — the name of the Wenatchi tribe in Nxaʔamxčín, the tribe’s language, which is also known as South Interior Salish. The name directly translates to “The people in between.”
The sleeves, collar, and buttons feature a geometric pattern that interprets a bitterroot basket pattern. The pattern on the sleeves represents the Wenatchee Foothills while the pattern down the buttons represents the Wenatchee River, said Colville Tribal Language Program Administrative Assistant Sharon Covington. One sleeve sports the AppleSox logo while the other sports the Colville Casinos logo.
Covington is one of five Šnp̓əšqʷáw̓šəxʷ tribal members who works at the Colville Tribal Language Program who had a direct hand in the design of the jerseys.
Covington said the group specifically chose not to include the English translation of the tribe’s name on the jerseys. “We just wanted people to know and see that’s our tribe,” she said.
AppleSox general manager Allie Schank said the team was inspired to commission the new jerseys by a similar project by the Spokane Indians. In 2014, the team debuted a new alternate uniform that featured the word “Sp’q’n’iʔ,” which is the name of the Spokane tribe in the Spokane language. In 2015, the design became the team’s main home game uniform.
“We just genuinely really wanted to have something that was a strong connection to the Native roots that are in Wenatchee,” Schank said.
Trent Brown is a summer 2022 World intern covering agriculture, local government, and community. He’s a senior at Northwestern University, where he served as the editor-in-chief of magazine North by Northwestern. Follow Trent on Twitter: @trent_br0wn.
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