Deadwood Metropolitans

The Deadwood Metropolitans, based in Deadwood, South Dakota, played the 1891 and 1892 seasons in the Black Hills League, an independent circuit drawing on the gold mining towns of the western Dakotas and the Nebraska panhandle. Home games were at Olympic Park.

The name goes back further than the professional club. When the first Black Hills Base Ball League organized on August 11, 1885, Deadwood's entry was already called the Metropolitans, alongside the Eighty-Stamps of Rapid City, the Athletes of Fort Meade, Central City's Belt Club, the Spearfish Red Stockings, Terraville and the Sturgis Nine. That 1885 league was formed partly to bring order to the existing town teams and partly to curb the violence and gambling that came with them. The problem did not disappear quickly. The Black Hills Daily Times reported that a fight broke out during a game on August 5, 1890 after an attempted steal of second, and that a spectator drew a revolver on the field before the local marshal stepped in.

The 1891 professional league fielded four clubs, with Deadwood joined by Lead, Hot Springs and a team from Chadron, Nebraska. The same four returned in 1892, though the Chadron franchise moved to Fort Meade during the season. Records and standings from both seasons have not survived.

Two names on the 1892 Deadwood roster reached the major leagues. Catcher Bill Traffley had played five big league seasons in the 1870s and 1880s, and Kid Mohler, one of the very few left-handed second basemen in professional baseball history, went on to a long career out west. The league folded after 1892 and Deadwood has not hosted a professional team since, though a semiprofessional league carried the Black Hills name into the 1950s.