Aberdeen had a team in the Northern League for its entire post-WW2 runtime, also named the Aberdeen Pheasants, but the league folded after the 1971 season and Aberdeen was left without professional baseball. The new Northern League and the North Central League both contacted Aberdeen about a franchise, but were told that Fossum Field was not up to professional standards.[1]
In 1994, Aberdeen joined the Prairie League, a new independent baseball league, for their 1995 season. The city spent $130,000 on improvements on Fossum Field, replacing the chain link fence with a wooden one and building an entirely new clubhouse.[2] The team's mascot was planned to be a hunting dog, but instead the team adopted a season ticket holder who came to games wearing a mask and costume as their mascot.[2]
1958 MLB Cy Young Award winner and 1949 Aberdeen Pheasant Bob Turley threw out of the first pitch of the Pheasants' first home game. Over the 1995 season, the Pheasants went 56–13 and set the record for highest minor league short-season winning percentage at .812. However, they lost the best-of-five league championship series to the Regina Cyclones.[2]
In July 1997, Aberdeen was kicked from the league for nonpayment of dues, but the next day the owners of the United States-based teams in the league forced the league president, Dave Ferguson, to readmit the Pheasants by threatening to stop playing the Canadian-based teams of the league. Jim Swanson, general manager of the Grand Forks Varmints, described the situation as "We basically put a gun to his [Dave Ferguson's] head, and told him to either use it, or we'd blow it off".[2][3]
After the 1997 season, the Pheasants folded along with the rest of the Prairie League.[2]
