Looking Back: Dorchester's Rich Baseball History

Spring is only six weeks away.

So are the sounds of children's laughter and the crack (or ping) of the bat coming from Nerud Field.

Dorchester is home to rich baseball history. Our community was known as a baseball town as early as the start of the 1900s. 

The village's rough-and-tumble young men gained a reputation for their ability to beat teams from towns much larger in population.  

Town-team baseball -- played by teens and men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s -- was a main attraction for many eastern and central Nebraska towns in the first half of the 20th century until the 1950s, when youth baseball gained in popularity.

In those early days, most games were played during free time on Sundays, according to old timers. By 1900, the teams from Dorchester became more organized and well-practiced.

Readers will recall a while back, we stumbled upon a photo taken by Russell Freidell (DHS Class of 1907) who captured a perfect image of the 1909 Dorchester baseball team -- one of the best baseball teams in southeast Nebraska at the time, according to records.

Thanks to an e-mail from a reader, we have images of the uniform worn by the 1918 Dorchester club. The century-old jersey top, which is in perfect condition, was worn by the Dorchester team from 1918 through the early 1920s.  

This particular jersey, housed in the Saline County Museum, was donated by the late Thomas Jarrett, whose parents owned Jarrett Hardware and sponsored the jersey. (Each uniform was sponsored by a different Dorchester business of that era.) It sports the big, black letter "D," similar to those on the uniforms worn by the 1909 club in Freidell's photograph.

Also stored in the museum is the Dorchester's baseball club's jersey worn from the mid-1920s through the start of the Great Depression. It's fancier in design, with the town's name spelled out and with flashier colors on the thick wool material.

At last check, neither Dorchester uniform is currently on display in the county museum. We hope that the museum caretakers can find a way to properly display, protect and preserve these magnificent relics of Dorchester's glorious past.

In the meantime, let's count down the days until spring. Let's count down the days until we hear: "Play ball!"