Wikipedia - Northwoods League

The Northwoods League is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. The league is amateur, and players are not paid, so as to maintain their college eligibility. Graduated senior pitchers are also eligible to play in the Northwoods League. Each team may have four of these players at a time.

Teams play 72 games scheduled from Memorial Day(May 27 in 2024) to the 2nd Saturday in August, while the playoffs take place the week after, starting on that Sunday and ending usually on Friday. The season itself is broken into two halves, with the winners of each half in each of the four sub-divisions playing against each other to determine a sub-divisional champion in a best-of-three series. The sub-divisional champions then meet in a winner-take-all game to determine a divisional champion. The divisional champions then meet in a winner-take-all game for the league championship.

In 2020, some teams cancelled their season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those teams that did play, instead of playing within their usual divisions, they played in hub regions, with some creating "temporary teams".

History

Established in 1994, the Northwoods League was the first for-profit summer collegiate baseball league. It has more teams and plays more games than any other summer collegiate baseball league. The Northwoods League drew over 1.1 Million fans for the fourth consecutive year in 2017. The purpose of the league is to develop players while college baseball teams are not allowed to work out. Many of the teams in the league play in ballparks formerly occupied by professional clubs from the Midwest League, Prairie League, Northern League, and Frontier League. The wooden bat circuit allows communities deemed too small for professional ball to continue to enjoy high-quality, competitive baseball during the summer months. The Northwoods League was the first summer collegiate baseball league to broadcast on the ESPN network, and currently webcasts all of its games.

The teams are located in the Northwoods region of the Upper Midwestern United States and Northwestern Ontario, mostly in the U.S. states of Minnesota (five teams) and Wisconsin (nine teams); also with three teams in Michigan, two in North Dakota, and one team each in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ontario.

Over 200 league alumni have gone on to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) with 91 alumni entering the MLB ranks from 2013 to 2017. Alumnus Max Scherzer, the 2017 National League Cy Young Award winner, and American League runner-up Chris Sale faced each other as the starting pitchers in the 2017 and 2018 Major League Baseball All-Star Games.

**Northwoods League** to liga baseballowa klasy letniej, która działa w północnej części Stanów Zjednoczonych i Kanady. Liga została założona w 1994 roku i składa się z 22 drużyn podzielonych na dwie dywizje: North i South. Sezon Northwoods League trwa od maja do sierpnia, a każda drużyna rozgrywa 72 mecze.

Northwoods League jest uważana za jedną z najlepszych lig letnich w Stanach Zjednoczonych i służy jako poligon doświadczalny dla najlepszych młodych zawodników. Wielu byłych graczy Northwoods League kontynuowało karierę w Major League Baseball, w tym Ryan Braun, Justin Verlander i Max Scherzer.

Liga rozgrywa swój mecz gwiazd w połowie sezonu, a zwycięzca wygrywa trofeum All-Star Game MVP. Northwoods League przyznaje również nagrodę Player of the Year najlepszemu zawodnikowi ligi oraz nagrodę Pitcher of the Year najlepszemu miotaczowi.

Northwoods League jest popularnym celem wycieczek dla rodzin i fanów baseballu. Stadiony ligi są zazwyczaj małe i przyjazne, a bilety są niedrogie. Fani mogą cieszyć się emocjonującymi meczami baseballa, a także wieloma atrakcjami towarzyszącymi, takimi jak występy muzyczne na żywo, konkursy i gry.