:quality(70):focal(668x357:678x367)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/U4OC6Z3A3VDE7LZD43PPENVZCM.jpg)
The Illinois Valley had a reason to celebrate in the summer of 2024 when the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp won its first Prospect League Championship.
Everyone involved with the Pistol Shrimp played their part in that success, including team owner and field manager Jon Jakiemiec, the players, the staff, the interns, and general manager June Keeley.
Keeley extends the congratulations a step further.
“I tell people when they say congratulations to the team for winning the championship, it’s congratulations to everyone because the entire community is the secret sauce that puts us over the top,” Keeley said. “You can have the best athletes on the field – the most competitive and fundamentally sound athletes – but they have to have a certain chemistry and work together.
“The enthusiasm and the support from the fans, what the players hear from the fans, is really what sets it apart and makes it all happen. To kind of stand back and look at how big it has grown and what it has become and what it means to people is amazing,” she added.
Keeley has been with the Pistol Shrimp from the start.
In 2019, the team was founded in DuPage County as the DuPage Pistol Shrimp, with home games played at Benedictine University in Lisle.
The franchise’s first season was played in Lisle, but then COVID-19 canceled the Prospect League’s 2020 season. The Pistol Shrimp played 18 games in a summer in-house league started by the Joliet Slammers, with all contests played in Joliet.
In 2021, the team became the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp when they moved to Peru and Schweickert Stadium.
“It’s very rewarding and very validating that everything we’re doing is amounting to success. We won the league championship in six years, but not even a full six years,” Keeley said. “Building the team within the community in terms of our attendance records being broken every year and to achieve a Prospect League Championship on the field, it’s huge. Every year the club has been in existence has been unique and has offered its own challenges.
“Strange things have happened. Wonderful things have happened,” she said. “The move to the Illinois Valley in 2021 was so much because we didn’t have any previous relationships with businesses. We didn’t know a lot of people. I’ve lived in the Chicago suburbs my entire adult life and hadn’t really been to the Starved Rock area much.”
However, from the first visit, Keeley appreciated what the Illinois Valley had to offer.
“When Jon and I first visited, we just knew the Illinois Valley felt like home and it was the place to be. There were so many pieces logistically to figuring out how it was going to work, who was going to work, and we needed staff, interns, and a team. Everything shifted because we had planned on being in Lisle but only played one season there before the big move, big change,” she said.
Keeley, who is also an independent insurance broker, is originally from Peru, Indiana, (she laughs and calls it ironic) and resides in Naperville.
However, from mid-May to mid-August, she lives in the Illinois Valley during baseball season.
“The job is too much to drive back and forth every day, even though it’s only a one hour and 15-minute drive,” Keeley said. “I feel very at home in the valley. I’ve gotten to make a lot of friendships in addition to the relationships that have developed through the team with sponsors, vendors, and community organizations.”
She has built connections with fans and can relay stories she has been told about fans coming to games with their late spouses and their children.
Keeley is also proud to be a female general manager of a baseball team.
“Being a general manager of a baseball team has not been traditionally a female role. In the Prospect League, there is Jeanie Cooke who is a co-owner of the Danville Dans, whose entire life is baseball,” Keeley said. “We just had the retirement of Ginger Fulton, who was the general manager for the Champion City Kings. And the Johnstown Mill Rats have Sarah Rex as the general manager. Out of the 18 teams in the Prospect League, it is nice we have female representation.
“No one seems to bat an eyelash that I’m a woman and a general manager. When the umpire crews come into town, there isn’t a discernible notice that it’s a female or male in the role. For me, the most satisfying part about me being a female in this role is working with the interns I do. I am showing younger female students that anything is possible. They can have any job they want. They can be a general manager of an MLB team,” Keeley said.
“The sky is the limit, and there is nothing you can’t do. I think it’s showing through action. Here I am as an example that they can do these things too. It’s whatever they put their mind to.”
What is really interesting is how it all started. Keeley didn’t search for a general manager job. She never thought it was something she was going to do.
“I was halfheartedly job hunting. I had been doing a lot of volunteer work,” Keeley said. “My son, Ryan Keeley, had a pitching coach, Mark Sheehan, who told me a friend and business associate of his was starting a baseball team in the Prospect League. He had mentioned the job would be in sales to help with sponsorships and it should be super easy.
“I met with Jon in the fall of 2018. At the meeting, I figured out quickly the position was so much more than a simple ad-selling position over the phone. I knew Jon needed someone to be a manager and take care of the behind-the-scenes aspects of baseball. He and I clicked right away. He brought me in as general manager, and the rest is history.”
Taking the chance to explore her options led her on this path.
“This little meeting for a part-time sales job led to me being a general manager and it has become a really big part of my life. It’s been the best part of my life for the last six years and into the future,” she said.