Vintage South Dakota Shirts: Defunct South Dakota Baseball Teams

South Dakota's oldest professional baseball came out of the gold camps. The Black Hills League fielded four clubs in 1891 and 1892, drawing on Deadwood, Lead and the mining towns around them, with Lead existing because of the Homestake Mine that ran for more than 125 years as the deepest gold mine in North America. Organized ball had reached the region by 1885, when the first Black Hills Base Ball League formed in part to bring the scattered town teams under one set of rules and in part to curb the violence and gambling that came with them. It took a while. The Black Hills Daily Times reported a fight breaking out during an August 1890 game after an attempted steal of second, and a spectator drawing a revolver on the field before the local marshal stepped in. No standings from either professional season have survived.

The eastern half of the state came later and lasted longer. Michael Cantillon, formerly of the Minneapolis Millers, organized the eight-team South Dakota League for 1920 and made every owner post a $1,200 deposit as a promise to finish the schedule, which brought in towns as small as Miller and Wessington Springs, the latter under five thousand people. Sioux Falls anchored it as the Soos and was sitting in first place at 35-22 when the league folded in mid-July 1923. Aberdeen ran the longest of any of them: 26 seasons as the Pheasants from 1946 through 1971, a farm club of the Browns and then the Orioles, where Earl Weaver managed in 1959 and Jim Palmer, Lou Piniella and Mark Belanger all passed through the pennant-winning 1964 roster. Our vintage South Dakota shirts honor these defunct clubs with original designs grounded in real research.

Every team below links to its own collection, where you can read the full history and shop shirts, hoodies, and crewnecks for that club. Find your hometown team, or the one your grandfather used to talk about.