Jacksonville Lunatics Baseball
The city of Jacksonville, Illinois, like many midwestern towns, made various attempts to establish viable, competitive baseball teams in the nascent years of the game. This page is dedicated specifically to a team called “The Lunatics.” Chapter 8 of my book discusses the team’s 1907 and 1908 seasons.
My most recent publication on the team (May 2022) is about their history, the team name, and specifically, the 1907 season when they had two team names, the Lunatics and the Kittens, as the community grappled with the use of the label. Click here to read the article.
My discussion of the article has been featured on two podcasts.
Rounders: A History of Baseball in America Jeffrey A. Lambert
The Jacksonville Lunatics and Why Team Names Change
Ballpark Hunter
Marc Viquez
Will be released September 9, 2024
In my research I have compiled source information about baseball in Jacksonville over specific years the city hosted teams. The information and links below are for baseball history fanatics, and people who love Jacksonville history. You are welcome to use it.
The photo below was tweeted out by Old Time Baseball Photos (@OTBaseballPhoto). I discuss the photo in my article, which features Billy Sunday as the guest umpire.
1892
Click this link to access my notes about the 1892 season.
Highlights include:
1. The team was named the Jacksonville Lunatics.
2. They played at League Park in Jacksonville, on Finley Street, just a few blocks away from the School for the Deaf.
3. A Women’s baseball team called the New York Champion Young Ladies’ Club played a “picked nine” from the locals.
1894
Click this link to access my notes about the 1894 season.
Highlights include:
1. The team was named the Jacksonville Jacks.
2. I provide some ideas why they may have been called the Jacks.
3. The Rock-Island Argus says that Jacksonville is well-known as an awful place to play, due to an awful crowd that provides “abuse and ill treatment.”
1895
Click this link to access my notes about the 1895 season.
Highlights include:
1. The team may have been named the Jacksonville Jacks or Lunatics
2. There is a reference to the team being named the Athenians. Jacksonville was known as the “City of Athens of the West,” but it appears to be more of a nickname from specific newspapers rather than the official team name. However, an article about the history of baseball in Jacksonville later identifies The Athenians as an official “past” team name.
3. League Park begins to be referred to as west side park in 1895, although more of a general designation than official name.
4. I include notes from 1896-1899.
1900
Click this link to access my notes about the 1900 season.
Highlights include:
1. There are no references to the team being named the Jacksonville Reds, even though they are listed as such on Wikipedia.
2. The team started in Springfield and midseason “transferred” to Jacksonville. However, they still played games on Sundays in Springfield. Jax citizens raised $2,000 to have the team.
3. There become multiple references of their stadium as “the West Side park” in 1900.
4. In 1903, the team was called the Dublins, but did not have affiliation with a league. There were markedly a number of Irish players on the team. I do include baseball references from 1901-1905 in the document at the end.
1906
Click this link to access my notes about the 1906 season.
Highlights include:
1. They are listed as The Jacks on Wikipedia, but most newspaper references from teams across the league refer to them as the Lunatics.
2. They were members of the Kitty League, which stood for Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee. They dissolved their membership in that league in early 1907, and joined the Iowa State league the year after.
1908 and after
Click this link to access my notes about the 1908+ season.
Highlights include:
1. Extant sources on the 1909 season incorrectly identify them as the Braves. (That was the Florida team). They were still called the Lunatics in 1909.
2. The 1918 team was called the Independents, or “Indees” for short.
3. West Side Park burned down sometime in 1918-1919.