BELOIT, Wis. – Nick Rickles hit a pair of home runs to help the Beloit Snappers outlast the Cedar Rapids Kernels in Midwest League baseball Wednesday night, 7-6. Beloit pulled within four games of the Kernels for first place in the Western Division with the victory. The teams play again Thursday morning at 11. Beloit built [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — That really was first base Niko Goodrum was playing. You weren’t just seeing things. Goodrum is the most-day’s shortstop for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, where he’s considered a legitimate prospect for the Minnesota Twins. This first base thing has never happened, until Monday afternoon. “A couple of spring training games and instructs,” [...]

The start of Monday’s Cedar Rapids Kernels game against the Kane County Cougars will be delayed an hour until 1 p.m. Power at Veterans Memorial Stadium was knocked out by a severe thunderstorm Sunday night and not restored until late Monday morning. Additionally, part of the tarp covering the playing field was blown off by [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — Most guys go to Mexico or the Caribbean to get in their offseason baseball work. J.D. Williams traveled a little farther. Half-a-world away, 14-hour plane ride farther. “I probably couldn’t do that again,” said the Cedar Rapids Kernels outfielder, who doubled leading off the ninth inning and scored on a Dalton Hicks [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — So what are you thinking when you watch one of your best young pitching prospects sprint off the mound after a foul pop and dive head first onto the clay warning track near the opponent’s dugout to catch the ball? You’re talking about $1.55 million flying through the air and landing on [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — Travis Harrison rounded first base and turned toward his dugout, expecting to be surrounded by a host of Cedar Rapids Kernels teammates. But everyone ran toward home plate to celebrate with Jorge Polanco instead. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. You either mob the guy with the game-winning hit or the [...]

Through the Iowa Writers Workshop, Lucas Mann spent a full season with the Clinton LumberKings of the Midwest League and has released a book about it entitled “Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere.” Here is a New York Times interview with Mann: Not Heaven; Iowa: Lucas Mann Talks About ‘Class A’ By JOHN WILLIAMS [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS – His first grand slam, his first walk-off hit, his first postgame shaving cream pie. Yet another step out the door here in Cedar Rapids and toward Fort Myers. Honestly, there’s probably not much more Byron Buxton can do at the low-Class A level. The 19-year-old phenom sent Veterans Memorial Stadium into a tizzy [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — You’ve never met Hudson Boyd, so you look for the real big guy in the Cedar Rapids Kernels clubhouse. You finally find his locker, but the dude sitting in a chair in front of it is this svelte kid nowhere near the 268 pounds the roster lists him. Hudson Boyd? Yep, Hudson Boyd. “The [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — Just kinda weird. That’s for regular Cedar Rapids Kernels fans and seven of the guys they have watched play a lot of baseball. The Burlington Bees made their first visit of the season to Veterans Memorial Stadium Tuesday night, which could best be described as Reunion Night. Or the old Kernels versus [...]