The All-Star History of the Suquamish Tribal Baseball Team

Do you know about the Suquamish Tribal All-Star team? Over 100 years ago, a baseball team composed of the best ballplayers the Suquamish Tribe had to offer travelled to Japan for an All-Star baseball tour of the country. 

“When I started working for the tribe, the story started to come out more and it became more of a focus of our history,” Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman said. 

In 1921, the opportunity was offered to the tribe to participate in the tour. The team itself was made up of both tribal players and minor league players as the coaches scrambled to fill out the team on short notice, creating a grouping of players including Harold Belmont, Louis George, Roy Loughrey and more. One player’s daughter, Marilyn Wandrey, said her dad was 22 when he embarked on the trip.

“My dad played different positions and he also was an umpire,” Wandrey said. “It meant a lot to the community, and the families of those who travelled continued to play baseball. It was one of the main things we had at that time. It was really a big thing.”

Forsman said the opportunity created a sense of pride within the community and was the reason a lot of the youth began to play baseball. 

“We’d be going up against tribes four or five times larger than us, and we’d have our team together, and it was this family responsibility,” Foreman said. 

In 2021, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the trip, representatives from the Suquamish took the filed prior to a Mariners game with Marilyn Wandrey throwing out the first pitch.

You can learn more about this story in the video.