The Midwest League is a minor league baseball league which operates in the Midwestern United States. Six teams formed the Illinois State League in 1947, but they changed their name to the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League when a team in Paducah, Kentucky was added. In 1956, with the addition of Iowa teams, the league became known as the Midwest League.
The league plays a 140-game schedule that begins in April and ends in early September. Since 2000 it has been divided into an Eastern Division and a Western Division, with four teams from each division (the winners of each half of the season and one or two runners-up) qualifying for the first round of playoffs. The first two rounds of playoffs are best-of-three series; the league championship series is a best-of-five.
In 1963 the MidwestLeague became a Class A league after the minor league classification structure was reorganized.
The league expanded to the present 14 teams in 1988 with the addition of franchises in South Bend, Indiana, and Rockford, Illinois.
The Fort Wayne Wizards are the oldest franchise in the league, having begun as the Mattoon Indians in 1947 and playing in Keokuk, Iowa, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, and Kenosha, Wisconsin before moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1993.
The independent leagues are the fringes of professional baseball, the teams are made up of players who have spent some time in the minor leagues.
The league decided to expand into Pueblo, CO and Laredo, TX but the franchises never developed a fan base and were shut down in the middle of the 1995 season.
The Heartland league was formed in 1996 with Lafayette and Anderson as the league nucleus and they were joined by Will County, IL and Dubois County, IN.
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