Keokuk Kernels
The Keokuk Kernels, based in Keokuk, Iowa, played in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League from 1952 to 1957 as a Cleveland Indians affiliate. The nickname came from The Hubinger Company, a local corn starch producer that was one of the city's major employers. Baseball in Keokuk ran far deeper than the Kernels era: the 1875 Keokuk Westerns were among the founding members of the National Association, the direct predecessor to today's major leagues, and on May 4, 1875, they hosted what is believed to be the first professional baseball game played in Iowa.
In 1954, a young Cleveland outfield prospect named Roger Maris played for the Kernels, tying the Three-I League single-season record for put-outs by an outfielder. It was in Keokuk that Maris, who had viewed himself primarily as a contact hitter, learned to pull the ball more aggressively under manager Jo-Jo White. That adjustment pointed toward what came later: 61 home runs for the New York Yankees in 1961, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record. The year after Maris, 1955, the Kernels put together one of the finest seasons in the history of the minor leagues. They finished 92-34, a .730 winning percentage, and won the Three-I championship by sweeping Peoria and then beating Burlington 3 games to 1 in the finals. They finished 22 games ahead of second-place Waterloo. Pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant went 19-3, and catcher Russ Nixon led the league in batting. The 1955 Kernels were ranked 30th on Minor League Baseball's all-time Top 100. That same year, Tim McCarver had his first professional game as a Kernel; future broadcaster Brent Musburger was the umpire working home plate.
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.
