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2024 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There ’ s No Place Like Copeland
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incomprehensible fact summed up the sports scene in a year the American public was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic .
Innovatively leading the sports industry , the Northwoods League managed Federal , State and Local health regulations to play 498 games by 22 teams in six States and 15 Upper Midwest cities , drawing 214,584 fans . Playing in “ pods ”, a term subsequently picked up by many sports leagues , where two and three teams were placed in a particular city to play each other and to reduce travel and exposure to the disease , the League began play on June 15th with three teams in Bismarck , ND . Following , on July 1 , the Minnesota-Iowa , Wisconsin-Illinois , and Michigan “ pods ” opened for play . Finally , on July 15th , Kenosha , Wisconsin joined League play with a local “ pod ” of two teams as the K-Town Bobbers joined the incumbent Kenosha Kingfish to play for the remainder of the summer . The League ’ s Canadian entry , Thunder Bay , ON was cut off from the rest of the League and was unable to play , as the Canadian-American border closed .
The newly created Kalamazoo Mac Daddies won the Michigan “ pod ” as the Bismarck Larks and Fond du Lac Dock Spiders won the North Dakota and Wisconsin-Illinois “ pods ”, respectively . The Waterloo Bucks won the Wisconsin-Iowa “ pod ” having the best overall record at 28-13 edging out the St . Cloud Rox by ½ game . Jayson Newman ( Cal-State Northridge ) of the Willmar Stingers led all Northwoods League players with a . 405 batting average and Peyton Williams ( Iowa ) of the Waterloo Bucks led the League with 13 home-runs .
Amid the pandemic , the Affiliated Minor Leagues , and many Independent Professional Leagues , as well as most Summer-Collegiate Leagues were shut down for play . Following , MLB contracted nearly 20 % of its Minor League teams . This resulted in many former affiliated teams and Leagues to look for places to land if they were to continue play . The already flourishing Summer-Collegiate landscape grew with the addition of the former affiliated professional Appalachian League and the “ MLB Draft League ” including members from the former affiliated NY-Penn League . Both Leagues were to begin play in 2021 .
Shortly after the conclusion of the season , Ryan Voz , longtime Northwoods League team employee and owner of the Willmar Stingers was named President and Commissioner of the Northwoods League .
During the Winter of 2020 , the Northwoods League made many milestone decisions . The first , was to allow its highquality , high-definition streaming of all its games to be viewed live and on-demand , free of charge for the 2021 season . It also agreed to provide all players with their , respective , TrackMan data during their play in the Northwoods League to aid in their development . Next , the Northwoods League signed a two-year agreement with U . S . Integrity to aid the Northwoods League ’ s entry into the world of legalized sports gambling as the League sought to gain further exposure nationally and internationally . U . S . Integrity will monitor all Northwoods League play , umpiring and nationwide betting activity and aid in compliance with all States offering legalized sports betting .
2021 The 2021 season started under the cloud of the persistent Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions on community gathering in select cities in the Upper Midwest . This resulted in some Northwoods League cities playing with much less than capacity seating to begin the summer .
Despite these restrictions , along with the League not being able to cross the Canadian border to play its Thunder Bay affiliate , the League still drew 994,732 fans . This was by far the most of any Summer-Collegiate baseball league in North America .
On the field , the story was the St . Cloud Rox , led by Manager of the Year , David Bellamy , who finished with a 50-18 record on the way to a Great Plains Division Title before losing in the winner take all Championship to the Traverse City Pit Spitters , who also won the pre-pandemic Championship in 2019 . Veteran Pit Spitter Mario Camilletti ( Central Michigan University ) was the hero of the Championship game with his eighth inning home run to seal the victory . Also