Baseball season has long passed since the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series, but here is a North Dakota baseball story that doesn’t really need a season to be told.
Die hard baseball fans in North Dakota who are now retired might remember this, but I’m guessing most of us won’t. I’ve been following baseball my entire life, played 11 years, coached two years and was an umpire for two years. However, I hadn’t heard of this story until a couple of weeks ago as I was looking for professional athletes from North Dakota.
In the 1950s Williston had a Minor League team called the Oilers. From 1954-57, they played in the Man-Dak League, which consisted of teams from North Dakota and Manitoba. It was a four-team league that included the Brandon Greys, the Minot Mallards and the Carmen Cardinals. In 1955 the Bismarck Barons and Dickinson Packers joined the league.
The Oilers had a mediocre team, but in 1955, they made the playoffs, but were defeated in round 1 by the Bismarck Barons.
A year later, things began to change in a big way. The Oilers won the Man-Dak pennant and went on to defeat Dickinson in the league championship.
Unfortunately, after the 1957 season, the entire league folded so the Oilers were left without a league to play in, at least for the short term.
In 1958, the team moved up a notch, however, joining the Western Canada Baseball League. So rather than small towns like Carmen and Dickinson, the Oilers were now matched up against teams from Edmonton, Moose Jaw, Regina, Lloydminster/North Battleford and Saskatoon.
And despite having an even won-loss record in 1957, the Oilers went on to win the 1958 championship despite the competition being much stiffer than than it was in the Man-Dak League.
They did it with two players who would later join the Major Leagues. Yes, it takes at least nine players to have a baseball team, but these two players; Jerry Adair and Bill Heath, led the Oilers to the championship over the Lloydminster-North Battleford Combines.
Adair, who grew up in Oklahoma, played shortstop but pitched on occasion. He made three starts on the mound, which were all complete games. At shortstop, he hit .444 in 14 playoff games with four home runs and six doubles.
Immediately after the 1958 season ended on Aug. 30, 1958, Adair signed a Major League contract with the Baltimore Orioles and made his big league debut Sept. 2.
Heath, who grew up in Modesto, Calif., had a .370 batting average which helped the Oilers to the league title. A year later in 1959, his batting average was .321 for the Edmonton Eskimos.
By 1965, Heath was signed with the Chicago White Sox and would later play for the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros.
We often hear stories about Roger Maris, who played high school baseball at Fargo Shanley and went on to set a Major League record 61 home runs for the New York Yankees in 1961. We also get plenty of news about Phil Jackson, who grew up in Williston and probably attended some of the Williston Oilers games as a teenager. Jackson was a standout for the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets and really became famous as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Maris and Jackson deserve all the accolades because of their highly successful careers. But not as well known, are Adair and Heath, who also made their mark on Major League baseball, getting their start at Ardean Aafedt Stadium in Williston, which is still in use today and has hosted three Babe Ruth World Series.’
In all, there were 40 players either from North Dakota, or who played in North Dakota in the 1950s, who went on to play in Major League baseball.
