BURKE — Amateur baseball is back in Burke. 

The Burke Bombers are in their inaugural season of amateur baseball, and the small town in south central South Dakota couldn’t be happier. 

“The city of the Burke and the people of Burke and outside people that wanted to see baseball back, they were just great about it,” Burke manager Blake Hoffman said. “They wanted to donate money to help out the team. That’s businesses. That’s private people, and that was everybody. We have a great community over here and they were ready to have baseball back.”

Burke's Tommy Determan (34) walks back to the dugout against Chamberlain on June 2 in Chamberlain. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)

A majority of the Bombers were recently the South Central Storm, who didn’t field a team last year in Gregory. Hoffman and other former Storm players inquired with the Burke community about moving nine miles south.   

“There was a lot of talk about us moving over to Burke, and so we decided we will see what the town thinks,” Hoffman said. “We did a thing where we talked to a bunch of the town people, and they said if you bring a team over we will support you in every way possible and they have been great to us.”

Hoffman added community members have spruced up Buryanek Field, Burke’s home field, in preparations for the season. 

“They’ve really turned it into a ball park,” Hoffman said. “It was always taken care of and managed. But they’ve made it to where we enjoy playing baseball on it.”

The Bombers are in the Pony Hills League, which also consists of the Chamberlain Mallards, Plankinton Bankers, Four Corners, Wessington Springs Owls, Colome Chaos, Winner Demons and Kimball/White Lake Nationals. 

The league was a natural fit for the upstart Bombers, given their proximity to the other league teams and relationships with its players. 

“We have great teams to play,” Hoffman said. “We’ve made friendships throughout the years and it’s a league where everybody is competitive.”

Burke's Christian Schweigert (32) against the Chamberlain Mallards on June 2 in Chamberlain. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)

The Bombers sport baby blue and white jerseys, with their nickname emblazoned in red letters across the chest. Their baseball caps are baby blue and feature the team’s logo, a cartoon-style bomb.

As for the nickname, that came from “bar talk,” said Hoffman. 

“We couldn’t decide on a name and we all decided to sit around and have a beer and this is what we landed on,” Hoffman said. “We liked it and we talked to a lot of the people in town and they were like ‘We love it.’ ”

Hoffman was expecting between 12-15 players on this year’s roster, but there are 23 players on the team. The roster ranges from players in their teens to their thirties, including some players that opted to come out of retirement. 

“I’ve got players that have never played for us, and I’ve got players that used to play a long time ago,” Hoffman said. “And they all decided it was a good year to play baseball.” 

The Bombers are 0-3 this season and their June 2 game vs. Chamberlain was delayed in the sixth inning due to weather.