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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - Aberdeen was a very active minor league baseball town for many years.

The farm teams for the Baltimore Orioles that played at Pheasant Field have since vanished, but a newly installed historic marker is commemorating them.

Ben Ernst was behind the plaque that commemorates the old Municipal Ballpark in Aberdeen.

It was called Pheasants Park, and if you go to an event on the NSU campus, near the Barnett Center, check out some of the names there. They are some big league stars that at one time played in Aberdeen.

I’d say probably ‘baseball enthusiast,’” is how Ernst described himself. “Baseball has always been my cup of tea. I just love the sport itself. Items that players wore throughout the years, being able to have those as a keepsake slash collectible, is a pretty cool thing. You know the authentic items that you can get when you go to games as well.”

Ben found out about a baseball research organization with grant money to give and a chapter in Baltimore.

“And the old Aberdeen Pheasants were a minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. I just kind of had that light bulb moment, thinking, you know, of all the great players that played here in Aberdeen for the Pheasants. So it’s just kind of one of those things I never thought why, why haven’t they recognized all those great players in that great franchise,” Ernst said.

Listed on the plaque are nearly a dozen players who became recognizable names in Major League Baseball. The most noteworthy would have to be Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer.

In only his second year of professional baseball, he had an 11-win, 3-loss record in Aberdeen, then made the major league Orioles club the next year in 1965. Dacotah Prairie Museum exhibit curator Marianne Marttila-Klitfel talked about a museum exhibit and the new plaque.

“It’s a historic marker that marks where the Aberdeen Municipal Ballpark once stood where the Aberdeen Pheasants, our beloved baseball team did play for many years from ‘46 to ‘71,” Marianne explained. “And we’ve been working on a display recently to also coincide with a publishing of a book about the Aberdeen Pleasants and their mascot “Philbert”, and so we do have a new display here in our anniversary exhibit for the public to enjoy.”

A trip down Aberdeen baseball memory lane. On the plaque next to the Barnett Center on the campus of Northern State University is the commemoration of the old Municipal Ballpark, Pheasant Park in Aberdeen