Southern Illinois Miners

• Location: Marion, IL
• League: Frontier League 2007-2021
• Affiliation: Independent
• Stadium: Rent One Park

Team History

The Southern Illinois Miners were an Independent professional baseball team based out of Marion, IL. The Miners were founded in 2007 as an expansion team of the Frontier League. Establishing themselves at Rent One Park, the Miners were the first professional baseball team to play in Marion since the departure of the Marion Indians of the Class D Illinois State League following the 1948 season. Despite 59 years without professional baseball, Marion was very receptive to the Miners, who quickly became one of the most popular teams in the Frontier League.

2007 Inaugural Season

The team's inaugural game was played on Wednesday May 23, 2007 against the Gateway Grizzlies at GCS Ballpark, in Sauget, IL. At the completion of nine innings in their inaugural match, the Miners were tied with the Grizzlies at 4 runs each. In the eleventh inning, the score was pushed to a 5-5 tie. After 12, the Miners fell to the Grizzlies 6-5.

By the Frontier League All-Star Break, the Miners had already established themselves as the most popular team in the League. The Miners were drawing the largest crowds of fans. With an average attendance of 5,255 fans, and with 126,111 fans entering the gates of Rent One Park, the Southern Illinois Miners were the only Frontier League team to draw over 100,000 fans by the All-Star break.

The Miners also saw first half success on field as well, entering the All-Star break with a .500 record of 23-23. The Miners entered the second half of the season second in their division, 13 games back from the Gateway Grizzlies and managed to play above .500 over the second half, finished a combined 49-47.

Year-by-Year Record

Year	Record	Finish	Manager	Playoffs	Pitching Coach
2007	49-47	6th	Mike Pinto
2008	58-38	3rd	Mike Pinto	Lost in 1st round
2009	56-40	4th (t)	Mike Pinto
2010	64-32	1st	Mike Pinto	Lost in 1st round
2011	58-38	2nd	Mike Pinto	Lost in 1st round	Justin Lord
2012	55-39	4th	Mike Pinto	League Champs	Justin Lord
2013	50-46	7th (t)	Mike Pinto
2014	60-36	3rd	Mike Pinto	Lost in 2nd round
2015	63-33	1st	Mike Pinto	Lost in 1st round
2016	63-33	1st	Mike Pinto	Lost in 1st round
2017	39-57	10th	Mike Pinto
2018	48-47	4th	Mike Pinto
2019	53-43	4th (t)	Mike Pinto
2020
2021

Related Sites

• Official site of the Southern Illinois Miners