“Take Me Out to the Ball Game!”

The history of “the old ball game” in Plankinton goes back 135 years. In the summer of 1882, just two years after the first building appeared on Main Street, a group of avid players formed a baseball team, as reported by the Yankton newspaper. In June of 1885, that same paper reported, “The dudes at Plankinton have organized a base ball club.” The following year, those dudes defeated the championship Kimball team, successfully terminating Kimball’s three-year winning streak in a hard-fought game. Victory may have been abetted by the Plankinton team’s vociferous complaining about the umpire’s bad calls that led to a replacement umpire taking the field after the fourth inning. In 1898, Plankinton produced its own championship team with three players named Mullen, two players named Teasdale, and others named Mabbot, Pease, Taubman, Closson, Cowell, and Gardner.

The town’s most famous team, the Newell Nine, promoted itself as the “first and only all-brothers baseball team in the world.” Organized sometime in the 1920’s and playing until the early 1930’s, the eleven Newell brothers, managed by their father, Adelbert (Dell, Sr.) Newell, travelled throughout the state competing with local town teams, volunteer fire department teams, and even semi-pro teams.

A Sioux Falls sports writer interviewed the team in its early years, and their story appeared in papers throughout the country. The article reported, “the Newell’s have been playing together as a team for three years now. The oldest boy is 36, the youngest 14. They have a game scheduled every Sunday in the summer and are immensely popular as an attraction.

‘We would play together as a team or sometimes for other teams,’ said Gilbert when asked about the brother act. ‘Two or three of us would play for other teams and bring home 10 dollars each. Our biggest mistake though was not hitting the road and touring the country.’”

In 1983, Tim Newell, the oldest of the grandsons, wrote a story for the Aurora County History book and named all the brothers. “These brothers each had no less than two nicknames. I will give their correct names, then their baseball playing names, which seems to be even today, the proper thing to do in today’s sports. I will start with my father, and nicknames: William (Bill, Billie), Adelbert (Delly, Stew), Lee (Ike), Bonora (Kim, Ben, Bennie), Elmer (Muggs, Muggie), Leslie (Hans), Henry (Dee), Faye (Smuck), August (Gus, Gussie, Pete), Gilbert (Shanks, Gillie), Lewis (Lou, Lewie).

Newell recalled some of his favorite stories. “The game the Newell Brothers played that stands out in my mind, after all these years, was the time they played the Mitchell Kernels of the Sunshine League, which was known as a Minor League. The Mitchell Kernels were the champions that year. The Newell team beat them in fifteen innings. The score was one to one with two outs. Dee was on third base, and Dad was up to bat. He had two strikes and three balls. My dad, being a pro at bunting, the next pitch was layed down. It was the most beautiful bunt that I ever witnessed in my life. The ‘Go’ sign was on and believe me, Dee was across home plate with time to spare. The third baseman never dreamed of a bunt on a 3 to 2 count. He was so mad that he threw his glove as far as he could throw it.”

Another story, pit the Plankinton baseball team against the brothers. “The second best game that I enjoyed so much was when the Plankinton City Team played the Newell Brothers. I don’t recall what year this was; but anyhow the Plankinton team was the champ of the Pony Hills League. Some of the city boys were boasting about what a great team they had. You couldn’t blame them because they WERE the champs. As I recall, Uncle Delly told them that the Newell Brothers could whip their pants off and would use their batboy to pitch for them. What an insult that was! One of the Plankinton boys asked if he meant Lewie, who was a Junior League player. Uncle Delly said, ‘He, (meaning Lewie) might be a Junior Leaguer, but he can beat your team, winner take all the gate receipts.’ The game was agreed upon and written up in the local paper. This game drew a huge crowd. The Newell Brothers beat them. The pitcher, Lewie, was 15 or 16 years old; pitched the complete game. He struck out fifteen batters. It was a hard pill to swallow for the Plankinton team, but this ‘Bat Boy’ as Delly called him, was headed for the big league.”

The Sioux Falls sports writer repeated a story Muggs liked to tell, “How about that time, with the bases loaded, we got a full count on that batter. It was getting dark and we wanted to get the game over quick. So Faye still has the ball in his catcher’s mitt and Gilbert winds up and pretends to throw the ball. You should have seen it. Faye smacks the mitt, the ump calls strike three and the batter starts arguing. But what do you think he’s arguing about? He’s telling the ump that the pitch was a mile outside!”

The batboy, who lived out his life in Plankinton, did get recruited into professional baseball, “but he hurt his shoulder so bad in the spring training. I believe it was a Chicago White Sox farm team… Therefore, he was dropped from the big time.” The Great Depression broke up the family team and also destroyed the dream of second-generation all-cousin team. The tough economic times meant no one could afford to buy baseballs and bats, and family members moved wherever they could “to put bread and butter on the table.”

The all-brother team achieved lasting fame in May of 1973 when the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York, gave the “Newell Nine” team photograph and story a permanent place in its history archives. While the brothers believed that they were the “first and only” all-brother team, the Baseball Hall of Fame lists 22 such baseball teams, with the first known team forming in 1869. Plankinton continues its tradition of great baseball every summer, no doubt inspired by the town’s many successful teams in the past. Next time you “go out to the ballgame,” remember how the Newell Nine put Plankinton on the baseball map!

Note: In addition to the Aurora County History book, much of the content for this story came from an article by Bernie Barnes in the July 27, 1973, edition of the Mitchell Daily Republic, and information provided by the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

It Happened Right Here:  “’Take Me Out to the Ballgame!’”, by Ruth Page Jones. Published in the South Dakota Mail, Plankinton, South Dakota, July 13, 2017

(Editor’s Note: Thanks also, to Ron and Sandy Tobin for supplying the photo and to Brian Newell and Jackie Newell for their assistance in the photo identification.)