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Midwest League Today's Midwest League has its root in several Class C and D leagues spread across Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, including the Three-I League, the Illinois State League, the Wisconsin State League, and the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League. The direct predecessor to the Midwest League is the Illinois State League, a six-team Class D league that began play in 1947. We are not taking major markets hosting teams in this league -- indeed, the Illinois State League was filled with the likes of the Belleville Stags and the West Frankfort Cardinals. When the league expanded outside of Illinois in 1949 to Paducah (Kentucky), the league was renamed the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League. After a further expansion to Iowa in 1956, the league became the Midwest League. Many of the teams in the Midwest League were also part of other leagues throughout the years. For instance, Appleton, Wisconsin Rapids, and Wausau were consistent members of the Class D Wisconsin State League, which existed from 1905-1907 and 1940-1953. The Central League, which had runs in 1903-1934 and 1948-1951, featured teams in Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Peoria, and Dayton. The Central Association, existing in 1908-1917 and then again in 1947-1949, featured teams in Keokuk, Rockford, Dubuque, Waterloo, and Clinton. Cedar Rapids had a run in the Western League and won a championship in 1937. During this era the league was unstable, to say the least, with teams floating in and out of the league. However, when the Three-I League disbanded in 1962, its three strongest franchises (Appleton, Cedar Rapids, and Burlington) joined the Midwest League. When the lower classes were eliminated in 1963, the league was promoted to a Class A league. The roots of today's Midwest League can be traced to 1982, when the league expanded into Beloit and Madison. The Beloit franchise was traditional and community-owned, but the Madison Muskies proved to be an instant hint not because of its onfield product but because of the relentless promotion from team owners. While the Madison owners could not keep up that level of promotion over the years -- Madison would eventually lose the Muskies as well as a successor franchise, the Top Hatters -- the future of the league was clear, as new owners would stress the entertainment value of the ballpark experience and their own identity independent of the parent team. Team owners would also need to conform to new rules laid down by major-league baseball and ratified by the National Association. The Professional Baseball Agreement laid down minimum standards for minor-league ballparks, and communities with substandard facilities were forced to either upgrade their ballparks or lose their franchises. Smaller communities, such as Wisconsin Rapids, Wausau and Kenosha, would lose their franchises to larger cities in Illinois and Indiana, where city officials were all too willing to put millions of dollars into new ballparks. For instance, the Kane County Cougars were an instant success in a new ballpark in 1990, attracting almost 250,000 fans, while the Fort Wayne Wizards drew 318,000 fans in 1992 in a new ballpark. New teams continually raised the stakes: the West Michigan Whitecaps drew 475,212 fans in 1994, while the Lansing Lugnuts drew 538,325 fans in 1996 in the $12.7 million Oldsmobile Park, and the Dayton Dragons attracted 581,853 fans in 2000 in its new ballpark. The move into larger markets paid off handsomely for team owners, as the league drew 3.2 million fans in 2000. While the more nostalgic of us might miss Class A ball being played in small markets like Wisconsin Rapids and Kenosha, the fact that the Midwest League is now on solid footing shows that there is a baseline where professional baseball can exist on a profitable and ongoing basis. Current Teams (in alphabetical order) Teams
(in alphabetical order) Interesting links |