Las Cruces Farmers

The Las Cruces Farmers were the first professional baseball team in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a city in the Mesilla Valley along the Rio Grande. They were charter members of the Class D Rio Grande Association, organized at the Hotel Sheldon in El Paso in February 1915, alongside clubs from Albuquerque, Douglas, El Paso, Phoenix, and Tucson. For every city in the league, it was the first professional team in town.

Play began on April 27, 1915, and it was a short season for Las Cruces. On May 24 the league dropped both the Farmers and the Douglas Miners for financial reasons, with Las Cruces at 5-14. The rest of the league lasted only until July 5, when the Rio Grande Association canceled the remainder of its only season.

Las Cruces would not have another professional team for nearly a century. In the 1800s and first half of the 1900s, teams existed in thousands of small towns across the United States, as Americans looked for recreational activities and entertainment in the era before TV.