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2024 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There ’ s No Place Like Copeland
bers . New affiliates in La Crosse , WI , Duluth , MN and Thunder Bay , Ontario , Canada joined the League in 2003 as the Brainerd Mighty Gulls ceased operations following the 2002 campaign . Attendance grew by almost a quarter of a million fans to over 580,000 . The Wisconsin Woodchucks won their second NWL Championship in three years , defeating the North Division Champion , St . Cloud River Bats , 2 games to 1 , under the direction of former Major League pitcher , Steve Foster . David Schultz ( Creighton ), of the La Crosse Loggers hit 16 home runs the most by anyone since current Major Leaguer , Jay Gibbons , hit 17 in 1997 . Mike Pankratz ( San Jacinto JC ) with the Wisconsin Woodchucks was named League MVP after posting an unprecedented . 699 slugging percentage , with 12 home runs . The story in 2003 , though , was the pitching , as 5 players entered the top 11 all-time in single-season ERA . Jake Hansen ( Northern Iowa ) of the Madison Mallards led with a 1.23 ERA , second lowest in NWL history . Flame throwing Thomas Diamond ( New Orleans ) of the St . Cloud River Bats became the 4th NWL pitcher to strikeout 100 batters as he finished 3rd all-time with 103 . His teammate on both fronts ( River Bats and New Orleans ), JP Martinez registered 17 saves , second all-time in the NWL . Will Krout ( Sonoma State ) of the Mankato Moondogs pitched great all summer posting a League record , 7 complete games , and 3 shutouts , good for second in League history . The St . Cloud River Bats set a League pitching record for strikeouts and recorded the 2nd lowest ERA in team history . Average attendance in the NWL has increased from 1,082 in 2001 to 1,365 in 2002 to 1,803 in 2003 .
2004 In 2004 , the Northwoods League would continue its trend of breaking records , both on and off the field . Eight of the ten NWL teams would shatter their season attendance records , as 626,704 fans turned out for NWL baseball games in the summer of 2004 . This number represented a 7.5 % increase over the previous year ’ s total . Leading the way was the Madison Mallards , who drew a NWL record 154,258 for the season including over 10,000 to a regular season game at Warner Park in June . The 2004 baseball season would also see six more NWL alumni make their debut in the major leagues , bringing the current total to 19 former NWL players competing in the big leagues . Two former Wisconsin Woodchucks , Ben Zobrist and Jonathan Tierce , won batting titles at the professional level in their first full professional season . In all , seventy NWL alumni were drafted in the June 2004 Major League Baseball amateur draft including the 10th pick overall , Thomas Diamond , by the Texas Rangers . This marked the highest selection in NWL history , suprassing former alumni Jeff Weaver who was picked with the 14th overall pick in 1998 . On the field , Rick Cavaiani ( UW-Milwaukee ) of the Woodchucks tied a team and league record for saves with 19 . Ryan Hastings ( Illinois ) established a new League record with 57 base on balls while playing for Waterloo . His college teammate , Chad Frk , broke the all-time NWL record for games played with 227 from 2001-2004 with Waterloo and Madison . Phillip Hawke ( Louisiana-Lafayette ) was named League MVP after leading the circuit in home runs ( 11 ), RBI ( 41 ), and slugging percentage (. 510 ). Hawke , also the winner of the “ Star of Stars ” award as All-Star game MVP , batted . 301 and finished 2nd in the League with a . 443 on base percentage . Pitcher Lance Broadway ( Texas Christian ) finished with 95 strikeouts to lead the league ( 7th All-Time ) while also tossing one of three no-hitters in 2004 . Adam Sanabria ( Florida ) from Rochester and Greg Reinhard ( UW-Whitewater ) of Wisconsin threw the other no-hitters . The Madison Mallards won their first League championship in 2004 under the guidance of Darrell Handelsman , who was named Manager of the Year in the NWL . The championship marked the 2nd in Handelsman ’ s career , the only manager in League history to win the title twice . Madison ’ s pitching staff recorded a 2.54 team ERA , good for 2nd best All-Time in the NWL while four teams struck out 500 or more batters during the season , led by Wisconsin ’ s 524 strikeouts , placing each in the top 6 All-Time .
2005 Remarkably , the 2005 season witnessed more growth as both two new teams and fans alike accounted for another record-season season in the NWL . With the addition of Eau Claire , WI and the re-emergence of the Brainerd , MN franchise , the NWL had expanded to 12 teams in their 12th year of operation . With growth came more record attendance numbers , as over 775,000 fans turned out for the 2005 season . Leading the way once again was Madison , who averaged an astounding 5,738 fans per night on their way to attracting a Summer Collegiate Baseball record of 200,000 + fans to the friendly confines of Warner Park . Ten of the 12 franchises set new attendance marks last summer with a League-wide average attendance of 1,884 . On the diamond , it was the League ’ s only
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