Baseball

Dubuque County, Iowa, and the Tri-State area have a rich baseball history going back to the mid-nineteenth century.  Sports writer Ed Prell of the Chicago Tribune called Dubuque an early cradle for baseball during the nineteenth century. In 1865, the Julien Base Ball Club of Dubuque hosted the North West Base Ball Tournament; the second-ever multi-state championship baseball tournament in baseball history.  In 1878, Ted Sullivan, Tom Loftus, and Charley Comiskey began a lifelong journey in Dubuque that would result in the creation of the American League and modern Major League Baseball as we know it today.

From 1860 to present, Dubuque County, Iowa, helped produce four MLB Hall of Famers, five MLB team owners, seven MLB player-managers plus five MLB managers, collectively winning twelve pennants and six World Championships.  Add to that numerous players who started their professional careers in Dubuque, or the eight born Dubuquer’s who made it to the major leagues, and you have an impressive list for small-town America.  Four Dubuquers have also served as minor league presidents.  And finally, six league pennants where captured by Dubuque minor league teams in 1879, 1905, 1923, 1929, 1955, and 1962. All of this early American baseball history foreshadowed Dubuque County’s Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.

The content below is related to a wide variety of Dubuque, Iowa, and Tri-State baseball players and teams. For specific images related to the following, please click on the link to go to their specific page.

Ted Sullivan	Clarence “Pants” Rowland	Dubuque Minor Leagues (1879 to 1932)
Tom Loftus	Urban “Red” Faber	Dubuque Plumpers Ballpark Frank
Charles Comiskey	Dubuque Packers (1954-1976)	Field of Dreams

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Photographs & Images

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Baseballs

© WARNING: All images used on this website are RESTRICTED-USE digital images taken with a camera by John T. Pregler since 2017 of artifacts he owns, unless cited otherwise. Older images in the “public domain” are represented by modern digital photographs that are covered by copyright law and are the exclusive property of John T. Pregler for use on The Lens of History and may not be copied, reproduced, or used for any reason without the expressed written consent of John T. Pregler. For permission to use images from this website, please send a written request via the Contact page.