Davenport River Rats
The Davenport River Rats, based in Davenport, Iowa, were charter members of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in 1901, one of eight founding clubs in a circuit that would become one of the longest-running minor leagues in the country. The nickname fit the geography: Davenport sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River directly across from Rock Island, Illinois, and the city's amateur teams had carried river-themed names for years before organized ball arrived. Davenport and Evansville, Indiana independently arrived at the same nickname for that inaugural Class D season, making them the only two clubs in the founding league to share a name. The 1901 River Rats finished 51-61 under manager Billy Smith, 9.5 games behind the first-place Terre Haute Hottentots.
The league reclassified to Class B in 1902, and the River Rats played through 1904 before folding. Davenport stayed in the Three-I under a string of other names through 1916, and those years produced a league championship in 1914 under the Blue Sox identity. Professional baseball returned to Davenport in 1946 with a Chicago Cubs affiliate that won the regular season pennant, featuring future major leaguers Roy Smalley Jr. and Rube Walker. Three years later the Davenport Pirates swept the Evansville Braves 3-0 to win the 1949 Three-I championship, with Vern Law on the pitching staff. Law won the Cy Young Award with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960.
Hall of Famer Jim Bunning pitched for the Davenport Tigers in 1951 at age 19, going 8-10 with a 2.88 ERA in his second professional season, before a major league career that included 224 wins, a perfect game in 1964, and later a seat in the United States Senate representing Kentucky.
The Three-I League (also known as 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.
