Vintage Minnesota Shirts: Defunct Minnesota Baseball Teams
Minnesota's entry here starts on the Red River, in a town that built a ball club around the one thing its neighbor could not sell. Fargo, directly across the water in North Dakota, had gone dry in 1889. Moorhead had not, and it became the area's hub of liquor consumption, with saloon owners running so-called jag wagons across the river to carry thirsty Fargoans over and back. When the Class F Red River Valley League opened in 1897 as the first circuit in the Dakotas to operate inside organized baseball, the Moorhead club played as the Barmaids. Fargo, where a ninety-day residency law had made the city a national destination for quick divorces, played as the Divorcees.
Moorhead was also the best team in the league. The Barmaids were 32-13 and ten and a half games clear of second place when the circuit disbanded on August 8, 1897, only weeks into the second half of its schedule. They answered to other names along the way: the Sheriffs, after manager William J. Bodkin, who was the sitting Clay County sheriff, and occasionally the Maroons, for the color of their uniforms. The town has not hosted a professional club of its own since, though it was a partner city in the Fargo-Moorhead Graingrowers from 1914 and the Fargo-Moorhead Twins from 1933. Our vintage Minnesota shirts honor these defunct clubs with original designs grounded in real research.
The team below links to its own collection, where you can read the full history and shop shirts, hoodies, and crewnecks for that club. More Minnesota teams are on the way.
