TheDecatur Commodores were a professionalminor league baseball team based inDecatur, Illinois that played for 64 seasons. The Commodores are the primary ancestor of today'sKane County Cougars. They played, with sporadic interruptions, from 1900 to 1974 in a variety of minor leagues, but spent the majority of their existence in theIllinois–Indiana–Iowa League (the "Three-I" League), later joining theMississippi–Ohio Valley League (1952–1955) and theMidwest League (1956–1974). While they spent most of their years as an independent without formalmajor league baseballteam affiliation, their primary affiliations were with theSt. Louis Cardinals and later theSan Francisco Giants, with isolated affiliations with theDetroit Tigers,Chicago Cubs andPhiladelphia Phillies.

The Commodores played home games atFans Field (1924–1974). Fans Field had a 5,200-seat grandstand which was demolished when the team moved toWausau, Wisconsin in 1974 and became theWausau Timbers. The field is still being used as a softball field.

Before the 1927 construction of Fans Field, the Commodores played at Racetrack Ballpark (1911-1915) andStaley Field (1922–1926). They shared Staley Field with the football team for which it was built, theDecatur Staleys. The Staleys were the early NFL franchise started byA.E. Staley and headed byGeorge Halas that relocated from Decatur in 1922 and became theChicago Bears.^[5]

The Commodores began play at Downing Racetrack (now called Hess Park) in 1901. The ball club played at the racetrack until 1915, but a tornado destroyed the grandstand on July 15. The structure was razed, but the Commies continued to play until ceasing operations on August 10.^[3][4][6]

The nickname Commodores refers toStephen Decatur, for whom the city is named. The team was often called the "Commies" for short, from a time before that became a slang term for "Communist". In their final years, they wore hand-me-down Giants uniforms, although still called the "Commodores", leading some fans to call them the "Commodore Giants".

• 1928 –Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League Champions
• 1952 –Mississippi-Ohio Valley League Champions
• 1953 –Mississippi-Ohio Valley League Champions
• 1957 –Midwest League Champions

The following no-hitters were pitched by Decatur pitchers in Midwest League play.

• Carl Hubbell (1927) Inducted, 1947

• May 30, 1909 – The Commodores win a 26-inning, 5-hour marathon over theBloomington Bloomers 2–1. The 26 innings stays the record for the most innings in a completed professional game in the United States for 57 years.^[20]
• August 18, 1960 – 18-year-old, left-handed pitcherBob Sprout of the Commodores pitched a no hitter against the Waterloo Hawks. In that game, Sprout struck out 22 hitters, which stands as theMWL single-game strikeout record.^[21] The Commies won by a 3–0 score.

The Commodores appear inHarry Turtledove'sWorldwar series, analternate history in which aliens invade Earth in 1942 and the Second World War turns into an interplanetary war. Members of the team are on a train which the aliens attack at the beginning of the invasion. One ball player is kidnapped by the invaders and is eventually taken by them to China, while another player and the team's manager escape and join the forces fighting the invasion. A considerable part of the series is described from these three characters' points of view, in which their baseball background plays a significant role in a number of ways.

• Fans Field - Home of the Commodores

• The Decatur Commodores in the Midwest League
• One Glorious Season: How Baseball Helped to Integrate Decatur, Illinois