Field of Dreams Game is NOT first MLB game played in Iowa

Keokuk Westerns of 1885, who played in the minor leagues. Note the presence of Bud Fowler, one of the few black players who appeared with white players in the 19th century. Earlier, in 1875, Keokuk fielded a team that competed in the National Association, which was a major league.

Next week Major League Baseball will put on a spectacle in Dyersville, Iowa, when the White Sox and Yankees roll into that small farming community to play a regular season game.

The game, to be played on August 12, is being dubbed the “Field of Dreams” game, in homage to the Oscar-nominated 1989 film of the same name. It’s sure to be a ratings boon for baseball, as Fox Sports will telecast the special game in prime time.

One thing this game won’t be: the first Major League game in Iowa. Forget what MLB is saying, this will not be the first game in the Hawkeye State to feature major league teams. For that, we go back to 1875.

The Keokuk Weaterns (or the Westerns of Keokuk, as they were most commonly referred) didn’t last long. They only played 13 games as an MLB team. And it happened more than 145 years ago, only a few years after the completion of the bloody U.S. Civil War, but play they did.

Keokuk is known as “The Gate City,” because it rests on the western banks of the Mississippi River, a gateway to the west. Back in the 1870s, it was a gateway to a frontier that lay beyond stretching practically untampered with until you got to the Pacific Ocean. America’s West, it’s frontier land, was just beyond the borders of Keokuk and Iowa, waiting to be “discovered.” Even if…