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Cuban ‘Chico’ Hernandez star of 1938 Bloomers
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 19, 2013.
Well before Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color line in 1947. Latin Americans had already made inroads into the lily-...
Catcher’s mitt tells story of big leaguer ‘Butch’ Henline
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 7, 2017.
The collections of the McLean County Museum of History include some 20,000 objects, and everyone one of them has a story to tell....
Bloomers had some success against big league clubs
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 11, 2017.
On Jun. 23, 1916, the minor league Bloomington Bloomers hosted the major league Chicago White Sox in a mid-season exhibition game....
Buffaloes battled for respect on hardwood court
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 31, 2017.
In late October 1921, the Bloomington Buffaloes, a “colored” basketball team, defeated a rival club called the Independents by the scor...
Indoor baseball once popular winter pastime
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 16, 2018.
Part of baseball’s attraction as the National Pastime is the sport’s inextricable connection to the rhythm of the seasons—how it begins...
Scrappy Ironmen earned state berth in ’42
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 6, 2019.
Three months after Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, Normal residents found their attention momentarily turned to an u...
Bloomington’s Cliff Carroll 19th century baseball standout
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 3, 2019.
With Major League Baseball’s spring training well underway in the warmer, sunnier climes of Florida and Arizona, thoughts of this write...
Harry Forbes, champion boxer, once made Bloomington home
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 24, 2019.
Regarded as one of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers of his era, world bantamweight champion Harry Forbes lived and trained in Bloomi...
‘Pop’ Horton organized campus circus fraternity in 1929
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 14, 2019.
Today marks the 38th anniversary of the death of Dr. Clifford E. Horton, one of the titans of Illinois State University athletics. Toda...
‘Pop’ Dillon of Normal found baseball success in LA
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 2, 2019.
Bloomington-Normal’s ties to the national pastime are long and deep. Most famously, National Baseball Hall of Fame induct...
Adam Bogardus, world champion wing shot
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 28, 2019.
In the fall of 1875, at a shooting tournament in Bloomington, champion marksman Adam H. Bogardus killed 25 of 28 pigeons in 2 minutes a...
Halloween 1945 followed world war’s end
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 20, 2019.
World War II still loomed large over American life during the Halloween season of 1945. The surrender of Japan marking the war’s end ha...
Thrilling World Series captivated nation back in 1926
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 27, 2019.
Football, it’s been clear for several decades now, is the national pastime, having assumed the mantle long held by that most American o...
Last local Corn Bowl held in 1953
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 24, 2019.
Sixty-six years ago this week—Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, 1953—a disappointingly small crowd was on hand to watch the last Corn Bowl in ...
Bloomers photo features bevy of big leaguers
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 20, 2020.
A single photograph can open a door into a lost world. This Bloomington Bloomers team photo, for instance, taken at Fans Field during t...
Digitized photos recall Thanksgiving Corn Bowl
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 21, 2021.
The not-for-profit McLean County Museum of History recently celebrated a remarkable milestone: The posting of the 100,000th digitized P...