On May 20, Tempo wrote about the renovation of venerable John O’Donnell Stadium in Davenport, Iowa, home to the Swing of the Quad Cities of the Class A Midwest League. Now that the league has crowned its 2004 champion — the Kane County Cougars lost to the West Michigan Whitecaps — we thought we’d check to see how the Swing fared.
The team, which had the league’s worst record in 2003, finished at .500, and its attendance of 173,370 was the highest since 1996, though the renovation reduced its home dates.
But bigger news came after the regular season: The Swing shifted its major-league affiliation from the Minnesota Twins to the St. Louis Cardinals.
According to the Quad-City Times, the Swing tried to land the Chicago Cubs, which were ending their affiliation with the Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts. But the Cubs went with the league’s Peoria Chiefs, which had been a Cardinal club. So, the Redbirds came a knocking in Davenport.
The Twins reacted as though they had been sold down the river Mississippi. Jim Rantz, their director of minor-league operations, told the Times he was “surprised and disappointed.”
The Twins took up with the Beloit (Wis.) Snappers, which the Milwaukee Brewers had dumped for the Charleston (W.Va.) Alley Cats of the South Atlantic League.
Davenport City Administrator Craig Malin, a prime mover behind the renovation of the city-owned John O’Donnell, told the Tribune last week that one of the hopes of those involved in the project was that the city “might move up a few notches in the affiliation food chain.” Though a native Chicago North Sider and lifelong Cubs fan, Malin thinks it did with the Cardinals, part of baseball royalty.
Still, he wishes the Swing had landed the Cubs. If it had, he said, “I think there would be a small parade, and I would be on a float waving to people.”