The Bismarck team was an integrated semi-professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

team based in

Bismarck, North Dakota Bismarck () is the capital of the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Burleigh County. It is the state's second-most populous city, after Fargo. The city's population was 73,622 in the 2020 census, while its metropolitan popula ...

, in the 1930s. The team played independently of any league because its mixed-race roster was a problem in a period of

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

, 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 Neil O. Churchill (February 13, 1891 – September, 1969) was a car dealer in Bismarck, North Dakota who funded an integrated baseball team in the mid-thirties more than a decade before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major Leag ...

, 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. The club won the 1935 National Baseball Conference semi-pro baseball tournament in Wichita, Kansas. Churchill raided other teams of their top players and stockpiled a team of

Negro league The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

and minor league all-stars.

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

Negro leaguers

Satchel Paige Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction in ...

and

Hilton Smith Hilton Lee Smith (February 27, 1907 – November 18, 1983) was an American right-handed pitcher in Negro league baseball. He pitched alongside Satchel Paige for the Kansas City Monarchs between 1932 and 1948. He was inducted into the National B ...

led the team, along with Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and, of the white

Sioux City Cowboys The Sioux City Cowboys were a minor league baseball team that played in the Western League (1900–1958), Western League (1934–1937), Nebraska State League (1938) and another incarnation of the Western League (baseball, 1939-41), Western League (1 ...

, Vernon "Moose" Johnson. 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 ''The Bismarck Tribune'' is a daily newspaper with a weekly audience of 82,000 unique readers, printed daily in Bismarck, North Dakota. Owned by Lee Enterprises, it is the only daily newspaper for south-central and southwest North Dakota. Histo ...

'' simply referred to the club as the "Bismarcks" in 1935.

References

McNary, Kyle P. 'North Dakota Whips Big Leagues', '' Pitch Black Baseball'' (2001)
Retrieved July 25, 2005. *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) Negro league baseball teams Professional baseball teams in North Dakota Sports in Bismarck, North Dakota Defunct baseball teams in North Dakota Baseball teams disestablished in 1936 Baseball teams established in 1930 {{Negro-league-baseball-team-stub