Dickinson Packers, Semi Pro Baseball Team

The Packers
For two years this diamond (on the southeast side of Dickinson) was the home of the Queen City Packers (also referred to as the Dickinson Packers), a semi-pro team that constituted the most ambitious sporting enterprise taken on here. The salaried team, fielded in 1955 and 1956, grew out of a meeting Tony Binek called. Representatives of the semi-pro Man-Dak League attended and said the Dickinson team would be welcome in the organization. Teams in the league included Williston, Minot, Bismarck and Dickinson.
The season opened with the local organization still looking for players. Ron Bowen of Portland, Oregon, was named manager and area players such as Bill Ueckert of Beach and Lloyd Pyle of Dickinson filled in until the roster was complete. Don Fischer was the only local man to play for the Packers the first season and the second season he decided to keep his job at the post office.
Dickinson did well in its first season semi -final playoffs, eliminating the Bismarck Barons in five games. Then they lost the championship to Minot. In the semi-finals the second year, the Packers lost the last in the series to the Williston Oilers.
Plans were made for a 1957 season but the heavy financial drain of the first two years plus other complications ended in a decision to stay out of the league for at least one season. The blank space in the league ended up being taken over by the Brandon, Manitoba, team.
President of the first Dickinson Baseball Association, which ran the club, was Tony Binek, with Walter Kack, J.S. Graham, George Binek and Ansul Suckerman among the other officers. The next year Kack moved up to president and other new directors and officers were Joe Regan, L.M. Larsen, Frank Flanagan, Chuck Agnew, AI Ungerecht, Harry Wienbergen, Joe Reiter, Sam Burgess and J.B. Connor. Bob Coutts had been chairman of funding. (Centennial Roundup p. 165)