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2025 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There’ s No Place Like Copeland
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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