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