DEADWOOD — On Oct. 19, 1922, the Sultan of Swat swung through South Dakota for an exhibition baseball game in the Black Hills. 

One-hundred years ago today, legendary slugger Babe Ruth played an exhibition contest in Deadwood as part of a 17-game tour across the upper Midwest. The Babe and his New York Yankees teammate Bob Meusel also made stops in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Colorado as part of a barnstorming tour. 

A popular practice in the early 1900s, barnstorming referred to teams or athletes that traveled to various locations to stage exhibition contests. Ruth and Meusel received $1,000 for each game played on the barnstorming tour. 

The exhibition tour came shortly after the Yankees were swept by the New York Giants in the 1922 World Series. In the 1922 season, Ruth hammered 35 home runs and drove in 99 runs in New York’s final season playing home games at Polo Grounds. 

A photo of Babe Ruth in the Weekly Pioneer Times on Oct. 19, 1922. (Weekly Pioneer Times)

Prior to playing in Deadwood, Ruth and Meusel played in Sioux City on the exhibition trip. The two Bronx Bombers traveled by train to South Dakota and a group of Deadwood businessmen met them in Sturgis.

They were escorted into Deadwood by automobiles and arrived by way of the Boulder Park Highway. They were treated to lunch prior to arriving at Amusement Park, site of the game. 

In honor of the occasion, Deadwood Mayor William E. Adams issued a proclamation allowing Deadwood businesses to be closed for the day and students were excused from school for the afternoon. The Deadwood band performed music before the game and in between innings.

The game’s attendance was reported as “a thousand or more,” by The Weekly Pioneer Times. General admission was $1.10, with $1 for parking and another 55 cents for reserved seating in the grandstand. Children could see the game for 55 cents. The contest generated $1,300 in gate receipts, according to the Lead Daily Call. 

“A large crowd from over the Hills noisily greeted the Great Bambino as he entered the diamond and knocked out some long drives in exhibition hitting,” the Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times reported. “In the actual game, however, he was not so fortunate and the fans waited in vain for him to hit a home run.”

For the exhibition game, Ruth played for Deadwood and Meusel played for the Black Hills League All-Stars, a team composed of players from Lead, Spearfish, Sturgis, Rapid City and Aladdin.

Deadwood won the game, 4-2. Ruth and Meusel both played first base and pitched for their respective clubs. The Great Bambino got two hits and struck out once, while Meusel had one hit in four at-bats. 

In the fourth, Ruth hit a hot grounder past Meusel at first base and into right field. Deadwood shortstop Virgil Rakestraw later drove in Ruth for his lone run. In the seventh, Ruth hit a double after eight foul balls in his final at-bat. In the eighth inning, Ruth pitched and got Meusel to pop out for the third out.

Ruth, who smacked 714 career Major League home runs, hit 20 homers during the 1922 barnstorming tour across the upper Midwest. In Deadwood, however, he left those in attendance disappointed when he failed to deliver a homer. 

The Weekly Pioneer-Times later wrote, “…those who saw yesterday's contest saw nothing that should cause thirty-five thousand New York fans to stand in line from daylight in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon to secure a ticket, permitting them to see these fellows perform.”

The lineup for an exhibition baseball game featuring Babe Ruth appears in The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times. (The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times)

Ruth and Meusel later left for Scottsbluff, Nebraska, site of their next exhibition game. En route to Scottsbluff, the Yankees had breakfast in Alliance, Nebraska, surrounded by a group of local admirers. 

At breakfast, the local Knights of Columbus presented the distinguished visitors with a watch fob, made from colored beads by Native American girls from the Pine Ridge mission, according to The Alliance Semi-Weekly Times. The watch fobs contained the “K of C” emblem and were woven in red, white and blue beads in the center. There were only seven of these emblems made. 

Ruth and Meusel’s tour came to an end in snowy Denver, Colorado, in late October. After the final game, Ruth caught a train to New York and Meusel left for Los Angeles. 

“We had a good time, though we didn’t make as much money as we had expected,” Ruth later told East Coast reporters about the trip. “The folks we played before were very kind to us.”

Upon his return, Ruth settled into his small farm in Sudbury, Massachusetts, for the winter months and prepared for the 1923 season by chopping wood. Ruth finished the season with 41 home runs and career-highs in doubles (45) and batting average (.393). 

In 1923, Ruth won the first of his four World Series titles with the New York Yankees. They christened their new Yankee Stadium with their first-ever World Series title, a 4-2 series win over the New York Giants.

An advertisement for Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel appears in The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times. (The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times)