But they’re not the only ball game in town.
Independent baseball has a long, storied tradition in North America, with its teams and leagues providing cheaper and oftentimes much more accessible baseball than MLB to local fans summer after summer for many years.
One of those independent teams is the Chicago Dogs, who compete in the American Association of Professional Baseball and play their home games at Impact Field in Rosemont. Anyone who’s taken the Tri-State Tollway out by O’Hare International Airport can see the ballpark from the expressway.
And starting this season, select Dogs games will be streamed live on WGN+ and at WGNTV.com for free. The first will be this Friday (May 9) for opening night, when the Dogs host the Lake Country Dockhounds at 6:30 p.m.
Click HERE for a full list of Dogs games that will be streamed live and for instructions on how to watch.
So, what exactly is independent baseball, and how many teams operate in Chicagoland?
Independent baseball has a long tradition in the United States and Canada, stretching back to the early 1900s.
Various leagues and teams have come and gone over the years, but independent baseball is still going strong today. Nine independent leagues comprised of 86 teams are operating at the start of the 2025 season, according to independentbaseball.net, a great online source for independent baseball information.
Independent baseball is often confused with minor-league baseball, but they’re not the same.
It’s true that both are considered professional, in the sense that players get paid to play. The difference is that independent leagues have no affiliation with Major League Baseball or its Minor League Baseball system.
When the Cubs or White Sox draft a player, for example, they send them to a minor-league affiliate team, not an independent team.
However, some independent leagues are now considered official Partners of Major League Baseball. This means that while their teams remain unaffiliated with an MLB franchise, any MLB club can sign players from those leagues and then put them into their own affiliated systems.
Simply put, independent leagues give valuable exposure to players hoping to be noticed and catch on with an MLB organization. If you have a great summer in independent ball, maybe you’ll be on a minor-league roster the next summer.
Independent-league teams might also look to draw fans by signing a former big-leaguer that isn’t on an MLB roster but still wants to play. Fans may know these names well.
Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, for example, played three seasons of independent ball at the end of his playing career, when he was in his mid-40s. Leon Durham, a staple in Cubs lineups during the 1980s who made two National League All-Star teams with the North Siders, played independent ball in 1993 and 1994.
So you never know who you might see take the field during an independent baseball game.
Right now, there are six independent baseball teams based in Chicagoland, three in the American Association of Professional Baseball and three in the Frontier League.
Both leagues are official Partners of Major League Baseball, and both begin their 2025 seasons this week.
Here is some information on Chicagoland’s six independent baseball teams:
CHICAGO DOGS
GARY SOUTHSHORE RAILCATS
KANE COUNTY COUGARS
JOLIET SLAMMERS
SCHAUMBURG BOOMERS
WINDY CITY THUNDERBOLTS
The Frontier League also has another team from Illinois in its Midwest Division, the Gateway Grizzlies, who play in Sauget in the southwestern part of the state, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.
Visit frontierleague.com for more information on the Frontier League. Visit aabaseball.com for more information on the American Association of Professional Baseball.
Currently, no minor-league teams with an affiliation to a parent MLB club are operating in Chicagoland.
There are three, however, that play either in Illinois or just over the border.
Further south, the Peoria Chiefs operate as the High-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. To the southwest, the Quad Cities River Bandits play their home games just over the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa. The River Bandits are the High-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.
Not far north, just over the Wisconsin border, the Beloit Sky Carp compete as the High-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins. That would actually be the closest minor-league affiliate operating in proximity to Chicago.
If you’re a big Cubs or White Sox fan looking for a quick summertime drive to watch one of their minor-league teams play, two of the Cubs’ affiliates meet that criteria, if you’re willing to spend a little time in the car.
The Iowa Cubs, the team’s Triple-A affiliate — meaning its players are just a step from the majors — play in Des Moines. The South Bend Cubs, the team’s High-A affiliate, play in South Bend, Ind.
The White Sox, however, don’t have a minor-league affiliate anywhere near the area.
The South Bend Cubs, Peoria Chiefs, Beloit Sky Carp and Quad Cities River Bandits all play in the same league, the Midwest League.
Minor-league affiliate teams have already started their 2025 seasons.
Yes, there are.
Several summer collegiate leagues operate all over the U.S. These players are not pros, but rather college players who join up with a team during the summer before going back to school in the fall. It’s a place for them to play during the summer, since college baseball seasons end sometime in the late spring.
Summer collegiate leagues don’t begin play until the end of May or early June, after college baseball season. Summer college players are often hoping to get noticed by pro scouts and eventually drafted, and many will be.
The most well-known of these league, historically, is probably the Cape Cod League out in Massachusetts. But the largest of these leagues is now the wood-bat Northwoods League, which includes 24 teams from North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. That league begins its season on Memorial Day, May 26.
The Northwoods League teams closest to Chicagoland are the Rockford Rivets and the Kenosha (Wis.) Kingfish.
Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner is just one of the many current and former MLB players who played in the Northwoods League during their college days. Hoerner played for the league’s Madison (Wis.) Mallards before being selected by the Cubs in the first round of the 2018 June Amateur Draft.
There’s also a league called the Metropolitan Collegiate Summer Baseball League of Illinois.
According to its website, that league includes eight teams in the Chicagoland area and begins its season on Saturday, May 24.
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