Back on May 5th, I gave you a sampling of some of the trash talking from the Fargo Sunday Argus, some of it even directed toward the home team. It turns out that the critical tone of the Argus paled in comparison to the weekly across the river, the Moorhead Independent. In its June 4 edition, the Moorhead paper took several nasty shots at the city of Fargo, its baseball team, and some of the players on the club. A 27-6 exhibition loss to Moorhead gave the Independent a perfect opportunity to add insult to injury. The paper kicked off its account of the game by referring to Fargo as the "Divorce colony." It then proceeded to mock Fargo pitcher Lee Roberts, calling him the "only invincible", and suggesting he write a book called "My After Fame." The paper then inexplicably labeled the Fargo team the "yellow ball team from over the creek." Finally, a shot was taken at Fargo's Hornsby, taunting him for breaking several teeth in an attempt to catch a fly ball. The Independent jokingly argued that the right fielder ought to be "arrested for attempting to practice dentistry." Considering Moorhead's great start to the season, and Fargo's struggles early on, the Independent displayed a poor sense of sportsmanship in its writing that went beyond the normal banter between rivals.
June 4, 1897 Moorhead Independent "The Exhibition Game", "Notes of the Diamond" p. 1
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