The South Dakota League and the Dakota League were one and the same league that changed names twice during its existence from 1920-1923. The South Dakota League was founded in 1920 as a class D league. In that first year, the league contained eight teams, all from South Dakota.
Cities represented:
Aberdeen, SD: Aberdeen Boosters 1920; Aberdeen Grays 1921-1923
Bismarck ND; Biscmarck Capitals 1922
Fargo ND; Fargo Athletics 1922
Huron, SD: Huron Packers 1920-1921
Jamestown ND; Jamestown Jimkotans 1922
Madison, SD: Madison Greys 1920-1921
Miller, SD: Miller Climbers/Jugglers 1920
Mitchell, SD: Mitchell Kernels 1920- 1923
Redfield, SD: Redfield Reds/Red Sox 1920-1921
Sioux Falls, SD: Sioux Falls Canaries 1921; Sioux Falls Soos 1920,1922, 1923Valley City, ND: Valley City, ND: Valley City Hi-Liners 1922
Wahpeton, ND & Breckenridge, MN: Wahpeton-Breckenridge Twins 1921-1922
Watertown, SD: Watertown Cubs 1921-1922
Wessington Springs, SD: Wessington Springs Saints 1920
As the league expanded to North Dakota in 1921, the word South was dropped.
After two seasons the league would shrink again and only teams from South Dakota were left so the league added South in the name again in 1923. Eventually the league would disband halfway the 1923 season on July 17.
The league organizers tried to create rivalries by placing two teams in the same area. The Valley City Hi-Liners and the Jamestown Jimkotans for example, were located close to each other, about 50km or 36mi. The schedule was arranged in such a way that both North Dakotan teams would play a double header on the Fourth of July,1922. A morning game in Valley City and an afternoon game in Jamestown. When professional baseball came to Jamestown in 1922, the local newspaper, the Jamestown Alert, jumped in and organized a name the team contest. In the end the name Jimkotans beat out the name Fort Sewards by only five votes. The team logo was designed by the league organizers: A
capital J on a hunter green background. After the Dakota league shrunk to four teams and adopted the name South Dakota League again, the Jimkotans continued to play in the newly erected North Dakota League in 1923. The Jimkotans’ players were all career minor leaguers. But there was one exception. A certain Mark Koenig ended up being an important part of the 1927 Murderers Row, hitting just before Babe Ruth in the lineup.
Despite being an average team, the Jimkotans’ players had a lot of fun, being a bunch of rascals. A quote from the Jamestown Sun explains:
“An article in The Jamestown Alert noted the players had a little prank they liked to play on visiting teams. The Jimkotan players would tell some of the visiting players that there was a young lady in town who was a big baseball fan and could be very friendly to a visiting star. They would lure the visiting player into a dark livery stable where one of the other Jimkotan players would fire a shot off.
The Alert reported this commonly resulted in the visiting player sprinting out of the livery stable and into the night.
It may have been the way Jimkotan players determined who was a threat to steal a base during the game.”
In a league that claimed to be a Dakota League, there was one tiny exception. One team represented two cities of which one was located just across the North Dakota-Minnesota border. The team was called the Wahpeton-Breckenridge Twins. These two neighboring cities have presented themselves as twin cities through the decades, so this move did not come as a surprise. The team only played two seasons in the Dakota League. Their homefield was located in Wahpeton. After the league shrunk to four South Dakotan teams, the Twins folded.
Even though organized baseball in Aberdeen SD goes back to the 1890s, it lasted until 1920 before the city got a taste of professional baseball when the South Dakota League placed a team there: the Aberdeen Boosters. In the next year, in the Dakota, League, the team would change its name into Grays and kept that moniker until the South Dakota League folded in 1923. The city would be without professional baseball for the next twenty-three years.
One of the other teams that had a short lived history was the Bismarck Capitals. The team came from Valley City on August 3rd, 1922 and renamed itself into Capitals. After the Dakota League shrunk to four South Dakotan teams, the Capitals played on in the new North Dakota League as well, but would fold after the league did.
Champions
1920 (SDL) Mitchell Kernels
1921 (DL) Mitchell Kernels
1922 (DL) Mitchell Kernels
1923 (SDL) Sioux Falls Soos
Despite a rich minor league tradition, North and South Dakota are now two of the six states without (affiliated) minor league baseball.
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