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2025 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There’ s No Place Like Copeland
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Boyle( Notre Dame) who threw 102 MPH. It was described by one national publication as a“ parade of arms” and was attended by over 50 MLB Scouts and Cross-Checkers. Prior to year-end, the Northwoods League welcomed two new teams that had been members of other Leagues in 2018. Traverse City, MI was purchased by the owners of the West Michigan Whitecaps, MLB Affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, and moved from the Independent Professional Frontier League into the Northwoods League for play in 2019. Kokomo, IN, who played in the summer-collegiate Prospect League in 2018, will also venture into the Northwoods League for play in 2019. These new teams bring the Northwoods League membership to 22 teams for play in 2019, adding two wonderful cities and facilities to the composition of the Nation’ s largest organized baseball League.
2019 In 2019, the story in the Northwoods League was the first-year expansion team from Traverse City, MI, the Traverse City Pit Spitters. In their inaugural season of Northwoods League play, the Spitters rolled to a League record 18- game winning streak and piled up a 52-20 regular season record before racking up a 4-0, hard fought, playoff record in winning the Northwoods League Championship under the guidance of Manager of the Year, Josh Rebandt. In a vote of his peers, Will Flynt of the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters was named Coach of the Year. Prior to the season, the Northwoods League broke into two distinct Divisions, the Great Plains, and the Great Lakes. No interdivision games were played prior to the Championship game.
Pit Spitters pitcher Andrew Hoffman( Oakland University) was the League’ s Pitcher of the Year, compiling an 8-0 record with a 1.08 ERA, allowing only 32 hits in 53.1 Innings Pitched. Hoffman’ s college teammate and Pit Spitters, second baseman, Mario Camilletti( Oakland University) led the team in the post-season with a. 429 Batting Average and four RBI as the Spitters won the Championship game in grand fashion, scoring two runs in the ninth to take a 3-2 walk-off win against the Great Plains Division Champion, Eau Claire Express, in front of 4,636 fans. The Spitters had previously taken the Great Lakes Division Championship by defeating the Madison Mallards by a score of 3-2. The Mallards were led by Northwoods League MVP Justice Bigbie( Western Carolina University) and former MLB player and Mallards Manager, Donnie Scott. Bigbie had a stellar season with a. 346 Batting Average, 12 Home Runs, and led the League in RBI’ s( 70) and Total Bases( 152).
The League’ s 22 member teams played more games than ever before( 791) and drew more fans than any Summer-Collegiate Baseball League has ever drawn, 1,282,610. The Waterloo Bucks hosted the 25th Northwoods League All-Star game, preceded by a dinner banquet featuring speaker and Waterloo, IA native and Olympic Gold Medalist, Dan Gable, perhaps the finest wrestler in history. The Great Lakes Division All-Stars defeated the Great Plains Division All-Stars, 5-2, behind two home runs by the Madison Mallards Justice Bigbie as the Lakeshore Chinooks Will Klein( Eastern Illinois) hit 100 MPH with his fastball.
The Northwoods League had 100 of its alumni play in MLB games in 2019, with 26 making their MLB debut. This brought the total number of Northwoods League alumni to make the Majors to 233 including 110 alums making their MLB debut in the last five years.
The Major League Dreams Showcase, featuring the League’ s top 100 players, as chosen by MLB Scouts, played in a doubleheader in Madison, WI on August 6. TJ Schwartz( UCLA) won the first game in a walk off and TJ Reeves( Alabama) and Andrew Morrow( Michigan State) each hit a Home Run in the second game in front of over 60 MLB Scouts.
The Northwoods continued it superiority in technology at the lower levels of baseball by beta testing its own inhouse developed real-time scoring system. Implementation is slated for the summer of 2020.
2020 In 2020, the Northwoods League drew more fans than any baseball League, at any level, in North America. This