The Mitchell Capital · Mitchell, South Dakota · 1915

Do Fans Want Baseball Team

Mitchell, South Dakota, 1915. Every town in the state has a nine in the field, Mitchell has a question mark, and the Capital puts it to the fans: get in the procession or watch it pass.

“Is Mitchell going to have a baseball team this season?” The Capital asks it straight, then spends a column making the only answer feel inevitable.

The civic pressure comes first: “Practically every city and town in South Dakota, irrespective of size, have a team in the field now or are going to have within a few days. Sioux Falls and Huron have fast semi-professional teams, some members of which are being paid good salaries. If Mitchell is to be in the procession the fans will have to busy themselves and give loyal support.”

The procession. Every town in the state is in it, and Mitchell is standing on the curb deciding.

Then the nostalgia, aimed with care: “Fifteen years ago Mitchell was decidedly on the baseball map, with such old fans and players as J. E. Wells, William Scallin, Dr. Ray Smith and others.” Those old teams “were fast enough to make the fans of South Dakota talk long about the prowess of Mitchell’s players. It was one of the best advertising mediums Mitchell probably ever had.”

A ball club as an advertising medium is a very 1915 argument and a completely correct one. Nobody ever read a census table out loud at a depot, but everybody talked about the town with the fast nine.

And the closer, the evidence: “Last Sunday the local club played its first game, defeating Letcher on her home grounds by the score of 1 to 0 in one of the fastest games in several seasons.” Letcher, mind, “has long had the reputation of being a real baseball town.” With two or three salaried players, the Capital figures, “Mitchell could meet any team in the state.”

Tomorrow, Letcher at the college field, 3:30 o’clock. The fans of the city “will have an opportunity to settle” the question themselves, at the gate, which is where these questions have always been settled.