The Decatur Commodores were a professional minor league baseball team based in Decatur, Illinois that played for 64 seasons. The Commodores are the primary ancestor of today's Kane 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 the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League (the "Three-I" League), later joining the Mississippi–Ohio Valley League (1952–1955) and the Midwest League (1956–1974). While they spent most of their years as an independent without formal major league baseball team affiliation, their primary affiliations were with the St. Louis Cardinals and later the San Francisco Giants, with isolated affiliations with the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies. The ballparks The Commodores played home games at Fans Field (1924–1974). Fans Field had a 5,200-seat grandstand which was demolished when the team moved to Wausau, Wisconsin in 1974 and became the Wausau Timbers. The field is still in use as a softball field. Prior to the 1924 construction of Fans Field, the Commodores played at Staley Field (1915, 1922–1923). They shared Staley Field with the football team for which it was built, the Decatur Staleys. The Staleys were the early NFL franchise started by A.E. Staley and headed by George Halas that relocated from Decatur in 1922 and became the Chicago Bears. The Commodores began play at Downing Racetrack (now called Hess Park) in 1901. Commodores nickname The nickname Commodores refers to Stephen 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". League Championships 1928 – Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League Champions 1952 – Mississippi-Ohio Valley League Champions 1953 – Mississippi-Ohio Valley League Champions 1957 – Midwest League Champions No-hitters The following no-hitters were pitched by Decatur pitchers in Midwest League play: 5-31-52 Ed Garrett, Mt. Vernon 5-1 7-28-54 John Bumgarner, Clinton 1-0 8-3-58 Gerald Fields, Clinton 5-0 8-18-60 Bob Sprout, Waterloo 3-0 22 strikeouts 6-20-61 Vern Orndorff, Clinton 3-0 7 Innings Perfect Game 8-13-63 Ollie Brown, Wisconsin Rapids8-0 6-7-66 Jesse Huggins, Wisconsin Rapids1-0 7 Innings 8-15-69 Gary Lavelle, Clinton 4-0 7 Innings 5-31-72 Doug Capilla, Appleton 1-0 7 Innings 6-12-74 Jeff Little, Dubuque 1-0 7 Innings Notable alumni Baseball Hall of Fame alumni Carl Hubbell