An Introduction to the EI League

By Janey Schmidt

Fig 1: EI Game Photo

America’s Favorite Pastime

Baseball has long been known as America’s favorite pastime. The Eastern Illinois Baseball League began as the Champaign County League in 1933, just four years into the Great Depression.(1) With unemployment rates and morale at an all-time low, many Americans jumped at any chance they had to have a little bit of fun. 

After a meeting at the Bailey & Himes Sporting Goods Shop at 606 East Green Street, nine managers had agreed to the creation of the league. A four-person committee, comprising a sporting goods manufacturer, a sporting goods shop owner, a reputable sports official and salesman, and the manager of the local Kroger grocery store in Urbana, drafted a schedule, a constitution, and the organization's bylaws. Subsequent meetings welcomed eight additional teams from nearby leagues to go through the proposed rules and to ensure the following: 1. The league would provide the county with its favorite game on Sundays throughout the summer, and 2. The league would cap at a total of ten teams.(2)

Fig 2: EI League Teams Map

Made and Courtesy of Glen Young

The Champaign County League’s first-ever season consisted of Bondville, Flatville, Gifford, Ogden, Parkville, Rantoul, Sidney, St. Mary’s (612 East Park Street, Champaign), Tolono, and Urbana. The league was considered an all-amateur league, with teams composed almost exclusively of hometown talents. 

The sprawling county-wide league cultivated very close-knit teams, with many of the players playing for a decade or longer, often switching between teams. Players stated that “it wasn’t just a baseball team,” as many of them felt that “it was an extended family.” Outside of playing ball, many of the teammates would spend much of their time together socializing and attending major life events like weddings and birthdays. Even after players stopped participating or retired, they still felt a kinship for one another. Jeff Demith, who played 18 seasons for Thomasboro, stated that he still considers his teammates the best friends of his life: “Even though we don’t see each other as much as we’d like, we still share the memories of some of the best times of our lives, and it is something I will cherish until the day I die.”(3)

1936: The Eastern Illinois Baseball League’s First Season

Fig 3: Ivesdale Team Photograph, Date Unknown

After the 1933-35 seasons, the league underwent a lot of adjustments. The first formal name change came in 1936 when the league was briefly known as the East Central Illinois League.  Soon after, the name was changed again to its current moniker: the Eastern Illinois (EI) League. The ten teams participating in this inaugural season were Buckley, Chanute Field Air Force Base, Flatville, Leverett, Rankin, Royal, Sadorus, Seymour, Thomasboro,

and the 106^th Calvary of Urbana. As of 2021, three of the original teams still compete in the league: Buckley, Flatville (now Gifford-Flatville), and Royal. Buckley is the only team that has participated every year since the 1936 inaugural season. The season concluded with Flatville holding onto first place (15-2), Buckley in second (15-3), and Seymour in third (10-7). (4)

The Impact of World War II

With the threat of entering World War II looming, President Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act in September of 1940. This compulsory enrollment for the armed forces was required of all men between the ages of 21 and 35. While the Act did force many E.I. League players to enroll, it was more common for baseball players to fall between the ages of 30-40 rather than 20-30, which meant baseball across the country was less affected by the draft.

The 1941 season saw a decline in team numbers, even though it was before the United States’ official entrance into the war. That December, Monticello, Tuscola, and Leverett had all left the league, leaving an opening for an all-African American team—the Champaign Colts—to make their debut. Despite participation numbers dropping, the league continued in full force. In fact, the Bloomington Pantagraph stated in an issue that “leaders in organized ball have been informed by Uncle Sam that they are to continue as before and that the government wants baseball to continue as a matter of public morale.” (5)

A Brief History: E.I.’s Longest Member - The Buckley Dutch Masters 

Buckley fielded a baseball team as early as 1927, long before the creation of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League. The team gained its name after three players had spotted an advertisement for Dutch Masters cigars at the local Roche Pharmacy.  According to contemporaneous accounts, Remi Roche’s astute knowledge about local heritage planted the seed for naming the team: “Why don’t you take up the name Buckley Dutch Masters? After all, you’re all Dutchmen”. The team kept the name in the hopes that the cigar company would sponsor or donate to the team. This never happened, but they did send the team a pack of cigars every year.(6) Arlie Seymour moved into the community in 1933 and quickly became the team manager for the Dutch Masters. He was an innovative businessman and a big baseball fan. His promotion techniques helped fill the stands with some of the highest attendance numbers that the league had seen. In 1936, up to 3,300 viewers attended a singular game. Arlie Seymour also acquired 18 floodlights from the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. These floodlights provided Buckley with the first lighted diamond in downstate Illinois.(7) The Dutch Masters still play at this site, now named Scheiwe Field in honor of Virgil Scheiwe, whose life revolved around playing for Buckley or helping them to maintain the field.

Fig 3: EI League Champions List

1947: Buckley comes second in the league but earns the most money for the season with a distribution check of $107.18. This is comparable to $1,437.22 in 2024.(8)

1950: Buckley plays the highest-scoring game in E.I. history with a 50-4 victory over Thomasboro.(9)

1950s: Buckley holds the highest win record for the decade with a 121-33 record and 78.6% win rate.

1990s: Buckley holds the highest win record for the decade with a 185-59 record and 75.9% win rate.

As of 2009, Buckley held 18 regular-season titles and 12 tournament titles.(10)

The Eastern Illinois League in the 2020s

It has been many years since the E.I. League saw a full roster of teams for the season. In the 2000s, many of the seasons have seen only three or four teams in each of the North and South Divisions. The 2023 season had only four teams in total. 

There are a plethora of reasons that account for this decrease in participation, with former players chalking it up to their available free time or the fact that highly competitive baseball (travel baseball) has become increasingly popular. Many players now begin playing at eight or nine years old and dedicate hours of their lives to practice, travel, and games. By the time players reach the adult age needed to play in the E.I. League, many of them are burnt out or trying to reach the big leagues.

Additional contributors to this decrease in team involvement come from fields being shut down. In 2022, an area farmer purchased the 4.1 acres of land that the Gifford-Flatville diamond sat on. After being the home for the team since 1933, the field was torn up and turned into suitable land for crops.(11)

Baseball remains one of America’s favorite pastimes, and the players and viewers of the Eastern Illinois League are no exception. It appears that as long as there are people to remember and celebrate the league, there will always be teams that want to play.

For more information about the history of the EI League, read “Diamond in a Cornfield” written by Glenn Young, who provided his work to us to share.

Diamond in a Cornfield - The Dutch Young Story.pdf

Download PDF • 149.00MB

Bibliography

1. Glen Young, Diamond in a Cornfield – The Dutch Young Story (2023), 5.

   2. Young, Diamond in a Cornfield, 7.

   3.  Fred Kroner, Catching Up – The Official History of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League (2010), 1.

   4.  Young, Diamond in a Cornfield, 29.

   5.  Fred Young, “Football Will Be Hardest Hit”, The Pantagraph, August 18, 1940.

   6.  “About the Buckley Dutch Masters” https://www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/default.asp?u=BUCKLEY&s=baseball&p=about

   7.  Kroner, Catching Up, 14.

   8.  Young, Diamond in a Cornfield, 24.

   9.  Kroner, Catching Up, 14

   10.  Kroner, Catching Up, 127.

   11.  Dave Hinton, “End of an era: Gifford’s Eastern Illinois Baseball League Field Strikes Out”, The News-Gazette, May 22, 2022. https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/community-events/end-of-an-era-giffords-eastern-illinois-baseball-league-field-strikes-out/article_2eb368f5-31fe-5512-a2d0-c79b16d62c58.html