Bismarck Club
| Bismarcks | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| League | Independent |
| Location | Bismarck, North Dakota |
| Established | 1930s |
| Disbanded | 1930s |
The Bismarck Club was a racially integrated semi-professional baseball team based in Bismarck, North Dakota, in the 1930s. Though the team played mostly against other semi-professional teams in the area, they won the 1935 National Semipro Championship with a mix of Negro league and minor league stars.
The team played independently of any league because its mixed-race roster was a problem in a period of segregation, and because there were no formal leagues at the semi-professional level in North Dakota in the 1930s. The team was owned by Neil Churchill, a local car dealer who owned the city's Chrysler dealership, and regularly played against Valley City, Jamestown, and other teams across North Dakota and Manitoba.[1][2]
The club won the 1935 National Baseball Conference semi-pro baseball tournament in Wichita, Kansas. Hall of Fame Negro leaguers Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith led the team, along with Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and, of the white Sioux City Cowboys, Vernon "Moose" Johnson.[3] Paige recalled that they "won 104 out of 105 games", with him serving as the starting pitcher in every game.[4]
Although the club is erroneously recalled as the "Churchills" today, the team was not formally named in the 1930s, as North Dakota newspapers such as the Bismarck Tribune simply referred to the club as the "Bismarcks" in 1935.
References
- ^ McNary, Kyle. "North Dakota Integrated Baseball History". Pitch Black Baseball. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
- ^ Hagerty, Tim. "June 6, 1935: Satchel Paige strikes out 17 for Bismarck in exhibition against Monarchs in Winnipeg". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
- ^ Eriksmoen, Curt (January 20, 2007). "1935 Bismarck team was one of the best". The Bismarck Tribune. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
- ^ "The Last Inning for Satchel Paige". Ebony. Johnson Publishing Company. September 1982. p. 76. Retrieved September 5, 2025.
Further reading
- Roper, Scott C. 1993. "Another Chink in Jim Crow? Race and Baseball on the Northern Plains, 1900-1935." NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives 2 (1) 75-89; reprinted in Bill Kirwin, editor, Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005) 81-93.
- Roper, Scott C. 1994. "A Summer in North Dakota: Uncovering Satchel Paige's 1935 Season." Baseball Research Journal 23, 51-54.
- Roper, Stephanie Abbot. 1993. "African Americans in North Dakota, 1800-1940." Master's Thesis, Department of History, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND.
- Various 'Hall of Merit discussion:Ted Radcliffe', Baseball Think Factory (2005) Retrieved July 25, 2005.
- Dunkel, Tom 2013. "Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line" (Atlantic Monthly Press)
External links
- Team history and statistics from seamheads.com