Jerome Willis "Red" Downs (August 23, 1883 – October 19, 1939), was a Major League Baseball player, who gained notoriety later in life as an armed robber during the Great Depression. Downs was born and raised in Neola, Iowa, a small town with a town ball baseball team. Downs played on the Neola team, known as the Neola Erins, as a young man. Between 1903 and 1906, he played minor league baseball on teams in Fort Scott, Arkansas, Guthrie, Oklahoma and Topeka, Kansas.