The Swing of the Quad Cities

Midwest League (2004-2007)

Background

Personally, I really liked this name.

I worked in minor league baseball during the stretch of time when the long-time Midwest League outpost in Quad City tried out this re-brand. I thought it was … elegant, for lack of a better word. And I dug the logos too.  A baseball propelled out of the bell of an “S”-shaped saxophone was the primary mark. And for the secondary logo: a stylized bass clef and eighth note forming the letters “QC” to represent the border communities of Bettendorf & Davenport Iowa and East Moline and Rock Island, Illinois that comprise the Quad Cities.

But I can also understand why many Quad City fans treated the summers of 2004 through 2007 as the sporting equivalent of the Coy & Vance Duke season on Dukes of Hazzard.  It’s a mouthful. Designating one of your team colors as “Bossa Nova Navy” and celebrating your new identity with a 1,000-piece Bobble Head Doll giveaway of a 70-years dead local jazz cornet player named Bix Beiderbecke might come off a tad precious.

And then there’s this: the team’s old identity, the River Bandits, was quite popular! In 2001, the nationwide sales of Quad City River Bandit caps ranked 10th in all of Minor League Baseball.²Batterson, Steve. “Bandits’ logo maintains its staying power”. The Quad City Times (Davenport, IA). July 27, 2001

Origins of Swing

So anyway … why did the Quad City franchise do all this?

The complete overhaul of the team’s vibe was time to coincide with a major renovation of John O’Donnell Stadium ahead of the 2004 season. The 73-year old ballpark had a beautiful natural setting, nestled beside the Centennial Bridge connecting Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa on the Iowa-side of the Mississippi River. The renovations, designed by HOK Sport, included a raised concourse, new scoreboard, renovated clubhouses, expanded concessions and a walkway that encircle the entire playing field. One of the most attractive upgrades was a new installed lawn seating area over the right field fence. The 9-foot high grass berm also served as a much needed flood wall. During the Great Flood of 1993, more than four feet of Mississippi water and silt inundated the ballpark, leaving the River Bandits homeless for half the summer and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

River Bandits owner Kevin Krause, who acquired the team in 1998, held a (re)Name The Team contest throughout the summer of 2003.  Krause’s staff hired San Diego-based design shop Plan B Branding to oversee the re-brand.

The complete overhaul also included one element that departed from the Jazz-derived theme. A giant plush orangutan named Clyde supplanted Rookie the Raccoon as the team’s mascot.

On The Field

The Swing spent their first season at renovated John O’Donnell Stadium playing out their final campaign as a Minnesota Twins farm team. At the end of the 2004 season, the Twins departed after six seasons as Quad City’s parent club.

2005 saw the arrival of the St. Louis Cardinals and Rick Ankiel. Ankiel was a top pitching prospect for the Cards in the late 1990’s, named the Minor League Player of the Year for 1999 by Baseball America and USA Today. The following year, at age 20, Ankiel won 11 games, ranked 7th in the National League in strikeouts and was the runner-up for N.L. Rookie-of-the-Year honors. But in the 2000 playoffs, Ankiel developed a case of the yips, suddenly unable to command his pitches. The mysterious ailment followed Ankiel into 2001 and several years of attempted rehabilitation in the minors.

After a brief retirement, the Cardinals invited Ankiel, now 25, to spring training to try out as an outfielder in 2005. Dispatched to Quad Cities, Ankiel hit .270 with 11 homers as he began one of the most unlikely comeback stories in recent Major League history. In 2007, Ankiel made it back to St. Louis as an outfielder and went on to play seven more seasons in the Majors.

Back To The Future

The beginning of the end of the Swing Era came in late 2006 when team owner Kevin Krause decided to sell the team to Dave Heller and Bob Herrfeldt. While approval of the sale dragged on through the 2007 season, Heller and Herrfeldt announced plans for a new fan vote on the team’s name. The options would include keeping the Swing, returning to the River Bandits, plus four new candidates: the Channel Cats, the Current, the River Eagles and the Talons.

Online voting drew over 14,000 votes and it was a landslide. River Bandits captured 51% of the vote. Staying with the Swing: just 6%.³Batterson, Steve. “New owners reintroduce River Bandits nickname”. The Quad City Times (Davenport, IA). December 14, 2007  In December 2007, after Krause’s sale to Heller and Herrfeldt finally closed, the new owners made it official: the team would once again be known as the River Bandits in 2008.

Sadly, the demise of the swing also meant the euthanization of Clyde the orangutan. He was replaced by Rascal the Raccoon the follow spring.

Swing of the Quad Cities Shop

Links

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