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2024 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There ’ s No Place Like Copeland
of baseball , the League hired a full-time IT Executive to its front office to oversee the ongoing development of its in-house ticketing system with integrated CRM , along with its oversight of all team and League websites . Following , the League introduced its own free APP during the season , allowing Northwoods League fans unprecedented access to teams all year long . The League also continued its pioneering of webcasting at the lower levels of baseball , outfitting nine teams with 4-camera , High Definition productions , allowing local news outlets to provide viewers seventy-two games worth of video by grabbing highlights from the cloud and inserting into their own news productions on a nightly basis . The League drew over 1.1 Million fans for the third consecutive season , far and away the most in Summer Collegiate Baseball . During the season , the League came to terms with the Wisconsi n Timber Rattlers , Midwest League Class A Affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers , on their purchase of the Fond du Lac , WI territory to become the 20th team in the Northwoods League . They became the second Midwest League member to purchase a Northwoods League team , joining the Cedar Rapids Kernels who own the League ’ s Waterloo Bucks . The Northwoods League ’ s 22nd All-Star game was hosted by the Kenosha Kingfish in historic fashion . The preceding evening featured “ Home Run Derby at the Harbor ”, the Northwoods League ’ s home run derby , in which Northwoods League players deposited baseballs into Lake Michigan , hitting off a pier into a buoy laden , boat filled harbor in front of over 3,000 fans witnessing this unprecedented event won by Marty Bechina of the home town Kingfish and Michigan State University . The following night , the North Division jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and held on for a 9-5 victory as Mason McCoy ( Iowa ), the 2015 League MVP from the La Crosse Loggers , and Steve Passatempo ( UMass-Lowell ) of the Wisconsin Woodchucks shared the “ Star of Stars ” award as 5,362 fans attended the Home Run Derby and All-Star game . The story of the season was the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters who won both halves of the South Division , before defeating the Lakeshore Chinooks , Battle Creek Bombers and winning a very competitive Summer Collegiate World Series , 2 games to 0 over North Division Champion , the Eau Claire Express . The first game of the Series featured a two-out , bottom of the ninth , game winning home run by Rob Calabrese ( Illinois-Chicago ) in one of the most dramatic moments in Northwoods League history . Alumni continued to make history in MLB as former La Crosse Logger , Max Scherzer , won his second Cy Young Award , while former Wisconsin Woodchuck , Ben Zobrist was the MVP of the World Series won by the Chicago Cubs . Seventy-two former NWL players played Major League Baseball in 2016 .
2017 The Northwoods League began play , in 2017 , as the largest organized baseball league in North America , if not the World , as it welcomed first year teams Fond du Lac , WI and Bismarck , ND . It then finalized its webcasting upgrade , as all 20 teams now featured a 4-Camera High Definition webcast that was sold as a subscription service to interested viewers . The Major League Baseball First Year Amateur Draft saw 181 players and alumni drafted in June , including 45 in the top 10 Rounds , and two former La Crosse Logger pitchers ( Scherzer and Sale ) went headto-head as the starting pitchers in the MLB All-Star Game , creating a World-Wide Northwoods League-awareness that may have been unprecedented . Twenty-Three Northwoods League alumni made their MLB debut in 2017 , highlighted by National League Rookie of the Year runner-up , Paul DeJong . DeJong , a former Wisconsin Woodchuck , tied the Single Season Home Run record , with 20 , during the 2014 Northwoods League season . Three years later , as a shortstop for the St . Louis Cardinals , he hit 25 Home Runs in his MLB rookie season . The Northwoods League had now had 65 of its alumni enter MLB in the last three years . Former La Crosse Logger pitcher Chris Sale was runner-up in the American League Cy Young Award Voting , while former La Crosse Logger pitcher , Max Scherzer , won the National League Cy Young Award , his third Cy Young Award , while throwing his third MLB no-hitter and virtually assuring his place in Cooperstown . The Northwoods League drew over 1.1 Million fans for the fourth consecutive year , far outdistancing its closest rival in the Summer Collegiate Baseball World . In fact , the Northwoods League drew more fans than 3 of the 4 , Short-Season Affiliated Professional Leagues in 2017 . On the field , coming off their Northwoods League Championship in 2016 , the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters , won both halves in the ultra- competitive South Division and finished with an incredible 52-20 record , setting a Northwoods League Record for wins in the regular season . In the North Division , the St . Cloud Rox won the first-half , then defeated the Wilmar Stingers before outlasting second-half winner Mankato , who had beaten Eau Claire , as St . Cloud knocked in a run with two outs in the ninth to tie the game , and then won in extra innings to claim the North
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