Three Iowa cities in three days

The Mississippi River is flooding Davenport and the River Bandits will have to play the Lansing Lugnuts away from home over the next three days.

The Quad Cities River Bandits will play out the remainder of the current homestand away from Modern Woodmen Park, as the flooding Mississippi River has continued to extend its reach past the railroad tracks on S. Gaines St. and has surrounded the ballpark.

While the field and stadium themselves are well protected, access to Modern Woodmen Park has been cut off. The Midwest League deemed the conditions surrounding the stadium unsafe, prompting the relocation of the remainder of the homestand.

Quad Cities will play their three-game series against the Lansing Lugnuts at a series of different locations. Monday will feature a 7:00 p.m. contest at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids. The series will shift to Alliant Energy Field in Clinton for a Noon start on Tuesday, while Wednesday's game will be played at Duane Banks Field in Iowa City at 6:00 p.m.

The ballpark in Iowa City is the home of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. Discounted tickets will be available at all three sites.

In 2001, the River Bandits were flooded out of a lot more than three games and the water got inside the stadium. I want to say they lost almost the entire first half of the season's home schedule.

Plan number one was to play games at Black Hawk Community College in Moline, Illinois. The lack of a warning track, seating, and clubhouses ended that after a few games. The Twins didn't like the fact that Justin Morneau was patrolling an outfield that had no warning track and a downslope to the outfield fence.

I may also be mistaken on this, but, they played a four games in Dayton as the home team.

One thing that I am not mistaken about is that the Rattlers had to play a three game series against the River Bandits in Clinton. All three games were rescheduled as day games so that they would not have to pay for the lights being turned on, but bus troubles, a rain delay, and a very long day forced the lights to be turned on in all three games. I'll cover these games in more detail when they come up in Rattler History...since 2000.

Two other things about those games in Clinton. The only people in the stands on those three games were Jamie Bubela's grandmother, mother, and sister. After the game, the players said that they could hear me on the field as I was calling the game from the radio booth.