Bloomington Bloomers

The Bloomington Bloomers, from Bloomington, Illinois, were a long-standing team in the Three-I League (the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League) during the early 20th century. The Bloomers started play in 1903 and played 29 seasons through 1939, winning four league titles in 1903, 1919, 1920, and 1939. The 1935 team was player-managed by Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes, who was winding down his playing career; Grimes moved on to coach the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1937.

The Three-I League (the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League) was a Class B circuit that ran from 1901 through 1961, with pauses for World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Though rooted primarily in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, the league also drew clubs from Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota as its core membership contracted in later years. In the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, teams existed in thousands of small towns across the United States, as Americans looked for recreational activities and entertainment in the era before TV.