Midwest League History

The 1990s

An overview of Midwest League history between 1990 and 1999.

Spare a thought for the towns who've lost their teams.

After 21 years, Wisconsin Rapids lost its team to Kenosha, and nine years later Kenosha lost the same team to Fort Wayne. Wausau's team moved to Geneva after sixteen seasons, where it is now called Kane County. Madison lost its twelve-year-old franchise to Grand Rapids (West Michigan). Springfield's team temporarily filled the void in Madison, but was on its way to Battle Creek ([Southwest] Michigan)--then on to Midland (Great Lakes) after a dozen BC summers. The Midwest League spent 36 years in Waterloo before their team occupied the vacated Springfield ballyard--on its way to Lansing.

The very nature of minor league baseball changed on December 13, 1990, and those changes show on this page. On that date the National Association and the major leagues ratified a new Professional Baseball Agreement, the contract defining the relationship between the majors and the "organized" minors. The 1990 PBA substantially increased the operational cost of owning a minor league team. It also made many ballparks obsolete. These are the main causes of the franchise changes shown on this page. The new PBA, which was implemented over the course of several years, has changed the look--and perhaps the nature--of this league.

Most of the changes shown on these tables are direct or indirect responses to the new PBA. Several teams moved. Others upgraded their ballparks. Communities sold local institutions to well-to-do businessmen who lived in big cities. The overall effect was to move the league into larger towns, and to move the league's center much farther east--primarily this showed in Michigan and Wisconsin, as the decade saw Michigan become home to three teams, while three of the five Badger State franchises migrated to other states.

There were more subtle reactions, too. Before the PBA changes, most MWL teams identified with their big-league affiliate; the more business-like relation defined by the 1990 PBA encouraged the owners to define their teams separately from those affiliations. This distance hastened the creation of locally-identified teams--the Burlington team, for instance, returned to the Bees name from an earlier era. Similarly, business and marketing considerations obviously drove such name and logo changes as the Kernels in Cedar Rapids and the changes from and back to the River Bandits in the Quad Cities.

On the whole, the changes have to be called a success. This was a time of explosive growth in the league (and in the minors). That some of the changes were mixed blessings is, of course, plain to nearly everyone.

The Midwest League was a Class A member of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues during this period.