Redbird Roadtrip:
After 16 days in the searing Georgia heat, the 1948 West Frankfort Cardinals began a tough 800 mile bus trip home with five exhibition games thrown in for good measure-- all with manager Hal Contini at the wheel.
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The Furniture Capital of Southern Illinois
While the loss of the coal industry has certainly been felt in West Frankfort and the surrounding area, it has meant opportunity for a few enterprising local residents
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Black Thursday
While at the time it seemed like most any other day, Thursday November 15th, 1990 marks the date of what would become the pending death sentence to the fragile southern Illinois coal economy.
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Memorial Memories
She was once considered among the finest in the nation. Sadly, in just a few short years, nothing but memories and two aging photographs remain.
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The Town
Just ten miles to the north of Marion, a quiet, quaint spot in the road sits comfortably in the rolling hills of southern Illinois, just a stone’s throw away from US Interstate 57. The town of West Frankfort, home to some 8,000 residents, enjoys a rich history and has literally risen and fallen with the tumultuous and often misunderstood bituminous coal industry.
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The Team
West Frankfort residents in the first half of the 19th century had needs. They needed shelter and protection. They needed commerce and industry. But more than that, they needed something to get their minds off of the stresses and strains of the harsh realities of life in a coal-mining town. What they needed was a baseball team.
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Most Recent Articles
Toby Brooks: WSIU InFocus
Debby Whitlatch talked with baseball fan Toby Brooks, an SIUC professor of kinesiology, about his book on the West Frankfort Cardinals minor league baseball team, Season of Change, and the team's 1948 Illinois State League championship win.
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Floyd Melliere: WSIU InFocus
On this episode of WSIU InFocus, we'll meet Floyd Melliere of St. Louis who pitched the West Frankfort Cardinals to their 1948 state championship title. Melliere, a native of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, talks with Debby Whitlatch about his career as a minor league pitcher during the 1940s and '50s and his memories of what it was like to play for West Frankfort's winning team.
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New book tells of area’s original professional baseball team, history
While working with the Southern Illinois Miners during their inaugural season in 2007, Toby Brooks had the opportunity to speak to the team. During his talk, Brooks made one incorrect comment that has ended up sending him on a five-year journey full of work, research, interviews and learning.
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Miners to honor W.F. Cardinals August 30
Thanks to Toby J. Brooks, a Southern Illinois University-Carbondale kinesiologist, and the efforts of the region's most recent professional baseball team, locals may soon become more acquainted with West Frankfort's rich baseball tradition.
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SIC Alum’s Heart and Literary Mind Remain in Southern Illinois
The rhyme and rhythm of small town-life often inspires conflicting emotions in young people – those who are fine with it, and those who want desperately to make a break. Golconda native and Southeastern Illinois College alumnus Toby Brooks was definitely one of the latter, but even now, in his current job as Assistant Professor of Athletic Training at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, his thoughts still turn back to southern Illinois, with the news that his book, Season of Change, has been accepted for publication.
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