By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

For the past 25 years, the South Dakota High School Baseball Association has been filling the void of high school baseball in the state. 

The result has been the continued growth of the sport with a record number of teams participating in the 2025 season and more teams expected for the 2026 season, according to Dane Yde, executive director of the SDHSBA, who added that in the 25 years since his organization was formed, close to 2,000 student athletes have participated in either a varsity, junior varsity or a freshman team. 

“We are really at a point where there are very few baseball towns or schools that we have left to add,” Yde said. “We are at a point where we have almost every possible school or town involved in high school baseball.” 

However, there could be some major changes on the horizon when it comes to high school baseball in South Dakota, which is one of two states that doesn’t have sanctioned baseball. The other being Wyoming. 

Last year the South Dakota High School Activities Association began exploring the possibility of adding baseball to its list of sports, and this week the association’s board of directors met to discuss the results of a recent survey which out of 100 athletic directors and superintendents, 42 percent said now is not the time, but continue to look at it depending upon future funding and the economic outlook, while 19 percent said do not sanction it. Meanwhile 22 percent said the first season should begin in the spring of 2027, 14 percent were in favor of starting in the spring of 2028 and three percent were in favor of beginning it in the spring of 2029.  

“I think schools are waiting through it and figuring out if it's something that would work and trying to balance how it would fit into their schedules and how it would fit into their budgets,” SDHSAA executive director Dan Swartos said before the results of the survey were made public.

Landon Calhoon is mobbed by his teammates after hitting an extra inning walk-off home run during the state Class B high school baseball tournament Monday, May 26, 2025 in Brookings. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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According to the survey, 70 percent cited funding as their biggest concern while 53 percent were concerned about the optics of adding sports at the same time districts might have to cut staff or are unable to give small pay raises. 

“I just know there’s schools that are losing enrollment, there’s schools where the funding is becoming an issue and to talk about adding sports while you’re cutting programs and cutting teachers, that gets to be very difficult,” Swartos said. 

Another concern among school administrators is scheduling with 41 percent listing it as one of their top three concerns regarding the sanctioning of baseball.

Under the high school baseball association, high school teams are able to play on Wednesday and Sundays, which would not be the case if baseball was sanctioned. Because of this, according to Yde, it has allowed players to participate in other school sports such as track and field.  

“If it were sanctioned, I think the natural and immediate change is you would see the baseball season get further along into June,” Yde said. “You would lose Wednesday and Sunday for dates of play and now you would need to maneuver around your traditional track and golf dates to get baseball games in and you run into where some schools only allow a kid to do one sport per season.”

Brandon Valley hoists the Class A championship trophy Saturday, May 24, 2025 at the Birdcage in Sioux Falls. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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While larger schools would likely not have any issues fielding baseball, softball and track and field teams in the spring, however, that’s not the case for the smaller schools where almost every boy and girl in the school needs to be out for sports just to field a team. 

It’s an issue that is concerning for Wagner athletic director Josh Davies. He said when softball was sanctioned, it was the first year Wagner allowed students to participate in multiple sports and added how there were four girls who did both softball and track along with other non-sports related activities. He went on to say it just became too much for them.  

“What we have now, is we have a softball team that there’s some kids that should be on that team, but they are in track,” Davies said. “I just feel that schools our size, if we are going to do this, we should do it in a separate season.”

If baseball were to be sanctioned, Davies’ solution is simple — move baseball and softball from the spring to the summer and operate it similar to Iowa, which is the only state in the country to offer sanctioned high school baseball in the summer.  

“I’m a firm believer that if they do sanction it, they should sanction and play the season in the summer,” Davies said. “I think they should do late May, all of June and early July and move softball to that. I’m a huge baseball fan. I’ve played baseball all my life. I love baseball. I will never vote or support it until they tell us it’s going to be off the spring (calendar).” 

Swartos said there hasn’t been interest in having baseball played in the summer. He added that you run into a number of issues with it being played in the summer, mostly contractual issues with most teaching contracts ending June 30 and new ones beginning July 1, along with schools using the summer to upgrade facilities. 

“Iowa is the only state in the country that has a summer season,” Swartos said. “The bigger thing is it would run into legion and VFW baseball and we don’t have any intention to disturb either of those programs.”

If high school baseball were to be sanctioned in South Dakota, the one big question is how would it affect American Legion Baseball? Under the current format, the state high school baseball tournaments conclude over Memorial Day weekend, with the Class A tournament typically being played at the same time when the state track meet is going on. 

According to C.P. Van Delist, department adjutant with the South Dakota American Legion, legion baseball typically begins after Memorial Day with the season built around the American Legion World Series and national legion regionals which take place in August.   

“That’s what pushes our timeline,” Van Delist said. “A lot of our timeline is based on that and so it would be a matter of getting the proper number of games.”

Van Delist added the South Dakota American Legion supports high school baseball and supports the idea of it becoming a sanctioned sport. 

 “A lot of it comes down to budgeting,” he said. “You look at a lot of these small schools, they have a hard time getting teachers to teach and then you want to throw one more thing at them and it’s going to cost that much more money and it’s not actually going to academics. 

“I think everyone is seeing it as a win for the kids as long as they can do it in the right time frame. From what we’ve been hearing they are looking at that spring time frame.”

While scheduling was a concern for school administrators, student numbers and the ability to field a team were also a concern with 47 percent citing this as one of their top concerns regarding sanctioning. 

Dell Rapids hoists the State Class B championship trophy Tuesday May 27, 2025 in Brookings. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
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In addition, administrators were asked if high school baseball was sanctioned beginning the 2026-27 school year with the first season being played in the spring of 2027, how likely would your school be able to field a team? Of the responses, 27 percent said they were very unlikely while 24 percent were unsure and 19 percent said they were unlikely. The survey also asked if they would be able to field a team beginning in the 2027-28 school year with play beginning in spring 2028. Of the responses, 23 percent said very unlikely, 21 percent unsure and 17 percent unlikely. 

“One of the main concerns with the current situation going to a sanction situation is we have a number of co-ops that may not be able to continue if it becomes sanctioned,” Yde said. “If those co-ops go away, that concern in the survey of student numbers and the ability to field a team, would certainly increase.”

The issue of co-ops is nothing new when it comes to the sporting landscape of South Dakota, as many schools already co-op for football and wrestling. 

However, if baseball does become sanctioned the issue then becomes which school pays for the coach, which school pays for the field and maintenance and what school pays for the travel expenses? 

Yde said there is also the case of prom, especially for the smaller schools and co-ops where the question is not what Saturday is prom on, it’s how many Saturday’s are teams not able to play because of prom? 

“There’s a lot of events we have to work around in the spring and one of the ways we work around it is Wednesdays and Sundays games and you wouldn't have those two days if we were sanctioned,” Yde said.  

Brandon Valley’s Brayden Knutson scores a run in the top of the first inning of the Lynx’s 10-4 win over Sioux Falls Jefferson to capture the state Class A championship Saturday in Sioux Falls.
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According to the survey the SDHSAA used the assumptions of a spring sanctioned baseball season having the same format similar to softball with a state tournament coinciding with the state track meet and the expected start up costs of around $10,000 to $15,000 plus transportation costs. 

However, Yde said he feels those costs are low and said he would tell an athletic director to budget at least $50,000 — adding the costs for Class B could be between $25,000 and $50,000 while Class AA could see the price be around $100,000 to $150,000. 

The survey also asked administrators what they see as the greatest benefits to sanctioning baseball, with 55 percent saying it would give kids the ability to play regardless of financial status of the family. 

Yde said he thinks most high school baseball programs are charging some sort of fees ranging anywhere from $50-$100 for some of the Class B teams, while the bigger schools could see upwards of $150 to $600 for the Sioux Falls schools. However, he added that many teams have fundraising opportunities for players, who come from families of lesser means.  

“Most local associations have programs in place to fundraise your place,” Yde said.  

Yde added the SDHSBA will probably have close to 132 schools participate in high baseball in South Dakota for next year, and expects that number to grow to close to 140 schools within the next three years.

But what Yde found interesting of the results from the survey was only 39 percent of schools think they could field a team either in the spring of 2027, ‘28 or ‘29.  

“If someone is trying to convince me to sanction high school baseball, the numbers have to be a lot stronger to do that,” he said. “Because what those numbers say to me, we push through sanctioning in the next two to three years, three-quarters of our kids are potentially going to be out of a high school baseball experience. I would not be for that. Not a chance.”

In the meantime, Yde and the rest of the high school baseball association will continue to keep operating and moving forward like they have been doing for 25 years. 

“We’re going to continue to work closely as possible with our local school districts and the activities directors with running as much as we can, a spring high school baseball season that mirrors a sanctioned sport to the best of our abilities. Like we’ve had,” Yde said. “I’m pretty favorable to our current model. We exist to make sure that every student across the state who wants to play baseball has an opportunity to play high school baseball. That is the mission of high school baseball and our association and if the numbers the survey produced compared to where we think we are going to be in the next two to three years. It seems pretty obvious to me where we think we should be going at this current moment in time.”