A DEADWOOD BASEBALL BOOK

By David Kemp and Michael Runge

Most historians consider baseball in the Black Hills of South Dakota to be outside the pale of the history of ‘organized’ baseball. However, the development and performance of the game in the late nineteen and early twentieth century falls within the scope of the baseball experience described in “The People’s Game, volume three of Dr. Harold Seymour’s seminal work of baseball history.  Baseball in Deadwood was not a ‘semi-pro’ affair where participants played for the gate and all held outside jobs.   Baseball in Deadwood was a truly professional affair.  You didn’t just play for the fire department, and electric company or a local department store.

This work presents a new subject for further baseball history research, a professional, salaried town team.  While I am sure that the players must have done some odd jobs to earn some extra money, most of the players on the teams were paid to play baseball.  They represented Deadwood on the road in nearby towns and military forts throughout the region.

Baseball historians have concentrated on documenting the players of the mining camps as they moved East to have outstanding professional career in the expanding world of Nineteeth century baseball.  Baseball was becoming America’s National Pastime.  This effort begins and suggested the need for further documentation of the players and teams in the Mining Camps of the West.

Michael Runge and David Kemp outdid their credentials as they found exceptional bits of information from the nineteeth and twentieth century historical records.  They have done an exceptional job in making an interesting read for historians and baseball fans alike.

Lloyd Johnson

Kansas City, Missouri

Baseball Historian; Editor of The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball.