Historic Baseball Diamond

Historic Baseball Diamond

NPS Photo/Daniel Cox

Baseball, a major entertainment during Nicodemus’ annual Emancipation Celebration, attracted visitors from around the state and region. Spectators watched the games from under towering cottonwood trees that surrounded the large field located here across the road from Welton/Scruggs Grove. Teams competed here until the 1950s.Cyclones was the name of the first baseball team organized in the 1880s. Other teams existed, but the most popular was Nicodemus Blues, created after the turn of the century. When committee members moved The Celebration from the grove to the town site, they also moved the baseball field. Most recently, the Nicodemus Historical Society built the Roberta Robinson Baseball Field on Washington Street.Several descendants had the talent to play professionally. Tall, muscular, and fast, Freddie Switzer hit a home run off a Satchel Paige pitch when the Kansas City Monarchs played at Nicodemus. The Monarchs urged Freddie to try out for the team, but he chose to stay and raise his family.Clarence Sayers, descendant and one time resident remembered, “When the Groves (Raymond, Jr.) came to play, you’d better get you some good gloves. Get you some good gloves and put a glove on underneath the one you have on.” 2011Raymond Grove Jr. remembered, “We’d go all over the country and play baseball. And everybody was glad to see us… and when Hill City had their first Graham County Fair, we won the tournament.” He added,”…they wanted me to go down there, but I couldn’t get down there to Kansas City to try out…I might have been a professional ball player if I had gotten there. Yeah, I couldn’t get to Kansas City.” 2011