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2025 La Crosse Loggers Baseball There’ s No Place Like Copeland
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Green Bay arrived in St. Cloud with Pitcher of the Year, Brett Sanchez( Belhaven University) taking the hill for the Rockers and showing everyone the stuff that made him Northwoods League Pitcher of the Year as the Green Bay Rockers won the Championship in a great 4-3 battle. Sanchez went 6-2 on the season with 73 strikeouts in 61.1 innings, walking only 10 batters.
There were some other great and historic performances on the field as Michael Hallquist( Minnesota-Crookston), of the Duluth Huskies won MVP honors hitting. 355 with 15 home runs and 65 RBIs on the season. Brendan Bobo( Cal-State Fullerton), returned for his second season in Wisconsin Rapids and hit 13 more home runs to go with the 17 he hit in 2022, setting the All-Time Career Record for Home Runs by a Northwoods League player. He broke former MLB All- Star Jay Gibbons( Cal-State Los Angeles) record of 28 achieved in 1997.
Two High School Seniors made serious impressions prior to their college debuts as Rochester Honker Petey Craska, who is headed to Georgia Tech, hit 10 Home Runs and Cal Fisher who played for the Madison Mallards and is headed for Florida State made the Northwoods League Post-Season All-Star squad.
In the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, the Northwoods League had 90 players taken including 5 First- Round choices and 60 current players and alums taken in the first 10 Rounds.
Jacob Wilson, a former Mankato MoonDog shortstop was taken with the 6th Overall pick in the Draft, the second highest pick in NWL history following Tony Sanchez a former Boston College and Battle Creek catcher taken with the 4th Overall pick in the 2006 Draft. The League had 27 former players make their MLB Debut for a total of 116 alums that played in MLB in 2023. The League has now had 340 players enter Major League Baseball.
Continuing its leadership in leveraging technology at this level of baseball, the Northwoods League joined MLB as one of the first Leagues to utilize the Pitch Clock as this innovation helped shorten games and enhance the fan experience, both in person and when viewing on television or devices.
Following the season, the Northwoods League welcomed the Badlands Big Sticks from the Independence League and Dickinson, ND and the Royal Oak Leprechauns from the Great Lakes League and Royal Oak, MI. The Northwoods League will play with 26 teams in 2024, covering three time-zones as the expansion continues the growth of North America’ s largest Baseball League.
In another historical announcement, the Northwoods League rebranded and introduced the first for-profit Summer- Collegiate Women’ s Softball League that will begin play in the summer of 2024.
2024 In 2024, the Northwoods League became the largest organized baseball League in history by playing with 26 teams. This surpassed the 1931 Black Baseball League that had 24 teams.
The brand also featured the first for-profit Summer Collegiate Softball League, starting with four teams and became the first Summer Collegiate Baseball League to have a FAST( free ad supported streaming television) Channel on the LG platform showing Live Northwoods League Baseball and Softball games al ong with other studio content available 24 / 7, May through September.
The fan base continued to grow as a Summer Collegiate record 1,357,679 fans passed through the turnstiles of Northwoods League teams, more than double the attendance of the next closest Summer Collegiate Baseball League. Northwoods League Softball attendees added another 47,711 fans to this total.
In total, Northwoods League streaming platforms accounted for over 5 million Unique Viewers in 2024. To accompany the FAST Channel, the Northwoods League also developed a new streaming APP, NWL +, to stream over 850 games