Bismarck’s first games were played before the snow melted in the spring of 1873 when Edwinton, (Bismarck’s first name,) was little more than a collection of shacks and tents on the prairie. The teams were made up of soldiers stationed at Fort Hancock, near present day downtown Bismarck, made up from infantry and cavalry companies. They played teams from Fort Buford, Fort Rice, and the Black Hills. One of the best known early clubs was the Actives.

By 1877, Bismarck’s gunfights faded and the gamblers left town. Townspeople needed entertainment! For the Fourth of July, Burleigh County officers challenged nine city merchants to a game at a field on the far western edge of town. The purpose was to raise money for a school under the patronage of St. Mary’s church. The merchants won, and the team stayed together, taking on all comers through the summer. The city’s main ball diamond was south of the tracks, near the stage coach barn.

Each season brought a new collection of local players and a new “regular” Bismarck nine. The Bismarck Blue Stockings represented the city in 1877. By 1883, Bismarck’s firemen had organized The No. 1 Hards, named after spring wheat. The No. 1 Hards built their own grounds near the city race track to the east. Everyone wanted a team to challenge the Actives, now at Fort Abraham Lincoln, and the No. 1 Hards. The Bismarck Tribune formed the Advertiser Nine. Doctors formed a team to play a team of lawyers. Saloon keepers challenged all comers. Two boarding houses squared off against each other; the Hotel de Stewart beat the Falconer Boarding house, after which the city’s hotels put teams in the game. There were mixed citizens teams, too, with names such as the Muffers who played the Butter Thumbs. A Baseball Association raised money to fence the race track field. At the end of most seasons, the teams disbanded to reorganize the next spring. In December 1885, however, the season went on. Two games were played between the city’s prominent men.

Baseball grew. The No. 1 Hards, still the “regulars,” played against the White W.B. Bell’s Nine, the Blue Stockings, and the Capitol Nine. Boys formed their own teams; the White Stars challenged the Jim the Wizzards’ Lightening team.

In July 1886, the earliest reported women’s game was played. Eighteen young women practiced and played near the home of Amos Robidou on the south side of town. They organized a team of their best nine to challenge a team of young women from Mandan. A new diamond, the Summit Grounds, was built on the Capitol grounds.

Bismarck teams traveled by train to play clubs from Mandan, Steele, Grand Forks, and Dickinson. Bismarck defeated Grand Forks three times, claiming bragging rights as unofficial state champions. The city staged city championship games including contests between the White Stockings and the Red Stockings. Fourth of July baseball remained a major attraction. In 1887, the featured game was the Lean Men against the Fat Men. Doctors still played the lawyers. Hotels still played the boarding houses. On the grounds of the Episcopal church on Third Street, the Pansy Blossoms played the Brick Bats. The young women of Bismarck created a championship belt to be awarded at the end of a series that determined the city champions.

In 1903, local baseball manager William A. Falconer petitioned the city to build a different baseball diamond south of the railroad tracks. There was a small problem. His plan would put the new baseball park 10 feet into the street. The plan was approved. The new grandstand held about 500 spectators. To celebrate, Bismarck invited the champions of the Twin Cities, the Palace Clothiers of St. Paul, to come play. Bismarck lost miserably.

Teams arrived from Dickinson, Fargo, Apple Creek, Sterling, and Standing Rock. The Bismarck nine played the National Guard’s Company A team and visiting semi-professional teams. Leagues appeared and disappeared, including one league with 20 teams. Women’s baseball teams were called “bloomer teams.” Bismarck had its own Star Bloomer Girls team. They challenged the men’s Capitols but lost badly. Taking the defeat in good humor, they hosted a street dance afterward. The ballpark became a place for youth games, for teams from every school, including the Sister’s School, the Indian School, the Reform School, and St. Mary’s.

The standout youth club in Bismarck in 1910 was the Toozes. They were fast, played teams from other towns, and challenged adult business teams. They became well known around the region.

Bismarck hosted one of the era’s most unusual baseball attractions in the summer of 1910. The Hopkins Bros. Bloomer Girls out of Des Moines, Iowa, arrived on July 17th. The traveling women’s team was famous for drawing large crowds to watch them play against men’s teams. They came prepared. They brought their own fence, 1,400 feet of canvas, a covered grandstand, and an electric arc light generator. It was Bismarck’s first game played by electric light. There was a little show-business going on, as it was well known that some of the players were men wearing long-haired wigs.

A new ballpark was built near the Capitol, with room for 1,200 spectators, a first-class grandstand, and a fence. The Bismarck adult teams organized the new 63-mile League drawing clubs from towns within 63 miles, including Flasher, Mandan, New Salem, Fort Lincoln, and Glen Ullin. The teams adopted color names: Red Sox, White Sox, and so forth. Mandan claimed the Gray Sox. The young Toozes were left out, but changed their name to the Maroons, and raised money for fancy new suits.

The White Sox became Bismarck’s official team and often used the Toozes for practice. Many of the Toozes went on to colleges in the Twin Cities, including several who played for St. Thomas College in St. Paul. The young men returned to Bismarck during the summers to play semi-pro ball.

Bismarck’s teams also played traveling Black clubs, including Minnesota’s Colored Gophers and the St. Paul Colored Keynotes.

Another diamond was built at the corner of Front Avenue and 13th Street. The penitentiary also organized a team, the Grove All-Stars. The team was allowed to play in nearby towns, until two players took advantage to escape. After that, a diamond was established inside the prison grounds.

Bismarck girl’s baseball teams took over the fields for practice on Wednesdays. In 1916, another famous women’s baseball team came to Bismarck to challenge the local nine. The All Americans included a well-known first baseman who adopted the nickname “Carrie Nation.” Miss Nation returned to play in Bismarck several times, always filling the stands.

At the close of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson stopped in Bismarck on a whistle stop circuit around the nation, promoting his peace treaty and the establishment of the League of Nations. The President spoke at the Bismarck City Auditorium, then continued westward on his journey. To entertain the 5,000 visitors who came to see the President, the afternoon featured a daredevil aviation exhibition, and, at the Capitol Grounds, a baseball game for the championship bragging rights to the Missouri Slope title. The 10-inning game between Halliday and Wilton was won by Wilton by a score of 7 to 6.

That summer, the Bismarck ballpark saw another visit by the American Athletic Girls Bloomer Team, which also starred Carrie Nation, who was promoted as the “World’s Greatest First Base Woman.”

The next summer, the baseball diamond on the Capitol grounds, most often used by the  Bismarck High School baseball team, was plowed up to plant landscaping trees, leaving  the city without a suitable ball park. Temporary fields were established on the golf links at  Tom O’Leary. That summer, a series of baseball games were used to raise money to build  the new Elks Swimming Pool. The city organized to build a municipal ballpark on Front  Avenue, the one that is the center of Bismarck baseball today. The Valley City Hi-Liners, a  minor league team, moved to town and became the Bismarck Capitals; however, the  experiment wasn’t long lived. Still, Bismarck had gotten a taste and wanted more.

While the local adult teams came and went, another Bismarck baseball tradition was  taking root: American Legion baseball. The Llyod Spetz Post No. 1 organized in 1927-1928,  and the Bismarck Governors would become one of the most enduring youth baseball  programs in North Dakota.

In 1926, fourteen local businesses pledged to buy new uniforms for a new amateur  independent team. This time they wanted an all-home team, and insisted the local players share any money raised. Businessmen William Kontos and Neil Churchill began organizing a new team. Churchill became the player/manager for the new Bismarck Grays.  

The Bismarck Grays were made up mostly of local players, including chiropractor Dr. H. B.  Love, the pitcher, who lived on The Red Trail Farm, northwest of Mandan. Love pitched 40  scoreless innings in 1926. Other players included former soldiers, semi-pro players, and  

big-leaguer, Charlie Boardman, a southpaw, who the newspapers described as being  “feared as the greatest pitcher in North Dakota for a number of years.” The Grays were not  a salaried team at first but found jobs with local businesses.  

A traveling semi-pro team, the All Nations of Kansas City came to Bismarck to play. The All  Nations team represented fifteen different nations and backgrounds: Italian, Spaniard,  Swede, Irish, Yankee, Japanese, Chinese, Cuban, Russian, Jewish, Norwegian, German,  Polish, Englishman, and a Scot. They traveled and worked with the Robbins Brothers circus. The first performance of the circus in Bismarck sold out, and a second was abruptly announced. The ball players, not allowed to leave their posts, had to forfeit the game.  

The Grays played the House of David team, a club of long haired men, with flowing beards,  and strong religious beliefs, who came from a colony in New York. During these years, the  Grays hosted all Black teams, including the McCoy-Nolan Colored Giants of Milwaukee  and the Colored Black Sox of Minneapolis, who brought their own band and orchestra and  put on a pavement dance after the game.  

The second year, Neil Churchill gave the team all new gray uniforms with blue stripes and  black caps. The uniforms included shoulders that were looser, caps with buttons and  peaks, more belting than the previous uniforms, gloves for one hand only, and new boots.  

Local builder John A. Larson and Greek confectionary owner William Kontos rejuvenated  the dugouts, added new roofing for the grandstand, replaced weak boards in the fence, and built a new press box.  

The Gray’s mascot was little Orlando “Freckles” Johnson, an 8th grader, weighing 93 lbs. He  was given a complete baseball uniform, and assigned to take care of the bats, get water,  set out the lines on game day, and peddle bills in the stands.  

On July 4, 1928, a woman stunt plane artist performed acrobatics over the ball park, and  two women parachuted into the park. Athletic contests for the city children during the  games included a chicken scramble, where 12 live chickens were thrown from the  grandstand, each having a one-dollar bill attached to one leg. Whoever caught the chicken received both the chicken and the money. 

The city’s service clubs and the Chamber of Commerce turned over the Bismarck baseball  park to the Bismarck Park Board on July 18. They had originally bought the ballpark for  approximately $2,750, including the ball grounds, grandstand, and six and ¾ acres of  ground, with the intention of it eventually becoming part of the city’s park system. When  the it was obtained by the Bismarck Park Board, it was valued at $4,000. At the dedication,  a Chevrolet sedan was given away with a raffle.  

The next year’s team included George “Ducky” Guidas, a former McCoy-Nolan Colored  Giants player, and Joe Day, a Native American who previously played for the All Nations.  Still, the Gray’s players weren’t paid a salary; instead, they received compensation from gate proceeds, on a point system for games played, practice attended, games pitched, and practices managed. 

The 1926 Bismarck Grays. Churchill is pictured 7th from the left.

Bismarck spectators were accustomed to seeing diverse teams, but would they support an  integrated team of their own? In 1933, Neil Churchill bought the Grays. The Jamestown  team roster included several Black players: Barney “Lefty” Brown, Willie Foster, Wild Bill  Freeman, and brothers Charlie and Art Hancock. For the Bismarck Grays’ 1934 season, in  addition to Ducky Guidas, Churchill recruited Black players Roosevelt Davis, a pitcher,  Harold Massmann, and the most outstanding, Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Satchel Paige was the  leading right-handed pitcher, to play in the Bismarck August 13th, debut. In Bismarck, the  Black players were sometimes met with racism away from the field, being refused in  restaurants and lodging. Some players stayed with local Black families. At the same time,  they drew enormous crowds. The Labor Day game filled the ballpark with 7,000 fans.  

For the next season, Churchill assembled a powerful semi-pro team that was truly  remarkable and quickly became a regional attraction. In 1935, the team went to the  National Semi-Pro Baseball Tournament in Wichita and became the first integrated team to  win the national championship.

The youth programs and leagues as well as immensely popular softball leagues never  faltered. In these years, two popular amateur baseball teams entertained the crowds, the Bismarck Eagles and the Bismarck Veterans. The familiar names of players on those teams  included Dick Karlgaard, Burl Dutt, Tom Kleppe, Dick Schaumberg, and many other well known locals.

After a twenty-year hiatus, the semi-pro Bismarck Barons were formed to join in the  fledgling Manitoba-Dakota (Man-Dak) League. The team included former major leaguers,  such as Cuban shortstop Preston “Pedro” Gomez, who went on from Bismarck to a notable  coaching career, including for Houston, San Diego, the Dodgers. The Barons team also  included Hall of Famer shortstop Art Pennington, and “Rookie of the Year” and future  baseball hall of famer Ray Dandridge. The team had college players and local talent. The  Barons’ opener included a colorful parade led by Bismarck’s mayor and the St. Mary’s  marching band. During one game, player/manager Al Cihocki broke his leg. The Baron’s won two league championship before they folded. Despite their success, the Barons  struggled to fill the seats and couldn’t continue. 

The youth games continued to draw large crowds. New bleachers were erected when the  city was chosen to host the American Legion’s 5-day National Junior Baseball Tournament  called the Little World Series in 1956. Four teams came to Bismarck to play: one from New  Orleans, LA; one from St. Louis, MO; one from Yonkers, NY; and one from Roseburg, OR. A  40-piece Navy band from Illinois provided musical color. Huge crowds watched the team  from St. Louis win the title. The event’s logo and theme were seen everywhere across  Bismarck, including a special “Drive-In Church” service held at the Corral Drive-In Theatre  that focused on baseball.

The Bismarck Tribune, 1962, Aug 29, Page 1 Leo Lalonde photo

In the summer of 1959, the great Satchel Paige returned to Bismarck for two exhibition  games with the Cuban All-Stars.  

In 1962, Bismarck again hosted the American Legion’s Little World Series. This time, eight teams competed. National news reporters and radio broadcasters came to town. A tryout camp before the tournament brought 35 scouts from 20 major league teams to Bismarck.  

The tournament’s new cowboy hat-wearing mascot was named “Sunny Nodak.” Merchants  sold commemorative coins and souvenir booklets, colorful ties and bumper stickers. Once  again, the team from St. Louis, MO, won the series, defeating the team from Honolulu, HI,  who didn’t appreciate temperatures in the low 50s during the evening title game.

The same year, a new semi-pro team organized. The name that won the competition for the new Bismarck-Mandan team was Partners; however, the team typically used the nickname,  the “Pards.” The team joined the Northern League as a Minnesota Twins affiliate. One of  the new Pards players, pitcher Bill Oerding, had pitched a winning 15-inning game in the  Little World Series in Bismarck six years earlier in 1956.  

During the next season in 1963, twelve of the Bismarck Pards and their coach were injured  when their team bus crashed returning from a night game in Williston. The coach healed  slowly, and he had to shout to his assistant coach from his wheelchair behind the  spectator fence. In addition to the injuries, it was a tough financial year for the Pards; they went inactive the next year.  

It wasn’t all bad. Satchel Paige and his All-Stars once again returned for an exhibition game that summer. Paige pitched the first five innings, and the All-Stars went on to win.

Fred Lasher

Although the Pards remained inactive, the following year, Bismarck’s baseball scene grew!  The Junior Legion A and B teams were highly successful. Bismarck’s youth signed up for recreation baseball, Little League, Babe Ruth leagues, and high school and junior college  teams. The city’s annual baseball round robin recreation competition attracted 900  ballplayers to decide the city champion in each league. There were several amateur men’s  teams, including a new baseball team called the Amateurs, formed by Tom Woodmansee, that kept the fans entertained for a season. For those who wanted to play on the field,  there were many, many softball teams. 

The following year, the Northern League enticed the Pards to come back as a Houston  Astro’s farm club. A team of 19 players was fielded. It was another rough year for the Pards, coming in last place. The Astro’s canceled their contract, and the team went  inactive again, never to return.

Fred Lasher was an outstanding relief pitcher for the Bismarck Pards. After the 1962 season, he would move up to the Minnesota Twins. Eventually traded to the Detroit Tigers, he would become the closer for Dennis McLean, and in 1968 he would become the second Bismarck pitcher to win a World Series ring.

Bismarck baseball culture was alive and well! In 1969, a new amateur Bismarck team organized, with young Bob Cordova, a longtime Bismarck High School English teacher, as a  player/manager. The team played an exhibition game wearing the old Barons and Pards  uniforms that the Junior College had kept.  

In the early 1970s, the Bismarck Park Board approved the construction of a new grandstand  and new fencing at the Municipal Ballpark. The Bismarck Park Board rushed to finish the  covered, concrete stands in time for the North Dakota American Legion Baseball  Tournament in August of 1971. The Governors won the state championship. Bismarck now  had six major baseball parks on North Washington Street, Sertoma-Riverside Park, Simile  Jr. High, Rita Murphy School, Airport Road, and the 14th Street Playground.  

The mid-70s saw several new amateur teams come and go, including the Bismarck  Merchants with 15 players and the Bismarck Capitols who painted homes to raise money.  Gate receipts for the adult games remained low; Bismarck spectators just wouldn’t show  up for the semi-pro games. By 1976, the citizens of Bismarck seemed to have become a  community that wanted to play on the diamond, rather than watch from the stands. It had  become a softball town. The first annual charitable softball tournament, founded by Sam  McQuade, Sr. to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy, was a great success; one hundred  three teams entered.  

The Governors continued to win state championships. Parents coached, grandparents  filled the stands, teenagers worked concessions. The game was part of Bismarck’s culture.  Girls and women tended toward softball and those leagues became important.

It was a while before the city tried again. In 1995, the Dakota Rattlers, a minor league team, formed. The launch was assisted by pitcher and former Minnesota Twin, Tony Oliva, who  came onboard to help to boost the new Bismarck club. The Rattlers did not play well.  Given the 26 year gap since Bismarck had supported a professional team, it came as little  surprise that Bismarck had become a town where Legion Ball and high school sports 

prevailed, with softball right on its tail. Attendance at the Rattlers games suffered, and the  gate receipts couldn’t cover costs. It would be another twenty or so years before Bismarck  would bring back professional baseball.

The Governors carried the baseball institutions forward, adding more state champion  banners and trophies. The youth and high school teams carried on. Girls fastpitch and  softball programs grew, giving girls their own way to play. The Governors won another  championship in 2014, bringing their total to 12. The Governors had been part of Bismarck  baseball history for nine decades.