Baseball’s collegiate summer Expedition League, which will begin its second season this month, has announced plans to expand in 2020. The league will welcome the Rapid City Jackalopes, named for a mythical creature whose origins go back to 13th-century reports of “horned hares” in Europe
The modern-day jackalope—a jackrabbit with antelope horns—has taken root in North America’s Great Plains perhaps more than anywhere else. This is in large part because of a hunter and taxidermist named Douglas Herrick, who in the 1930s grafted antlers onto jackrabbits and sold them to hotels and restaurants and retailers in Wyoming and South Dakota, presumably including the Jackrabbits’ home in Rapid City, South Dakota. Now you can’t go into any establishment in the Upper Midwest without seeing one.
The Jackalopes will join 10 other Expedition League teams in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Manitoba.
