A frenzy of post-season baseball before moving from summer to fall

If you like baseball, there will be a lot of it to follow locally in August.

The frenzy has already started with Medford’s historic run in the Wisconsin American Legion Class AA state tournament, which ended Tuesday with a second-place finish in at the 19U Senior level.

While Medford has been to state at either the AA or A level in five of the last six seasons (there was no Legion season in 2020 of course), this team was built differently than the others with more of a last-hurrah feeling.

It was, by far, the oldest and most experienced state qualifier the Legion program has had with mostly high school graduates as opposed to underclassmen prepping for next spring. It was built to make a post-season run, which it did.

As a whole, Class AA, the middle class in Wisconsin’s Legion program featuring teams with high school enrollments between 401900, seemed to be down in team numbers this year with all but one regional tournament having four or fewer teams. But, the teams at state were legit. In person and watching online, it appeared they all could hit, there were some outstanding defensive players and each team had pitching depth –– an absolute necessity to make a run through the five-day meat grinder of a tournament.

Several team members were part of Medford’s 2024 high school team that won three WIAA tournament games in dramatic fashion and that impressive ability to perform in the clutch carried into the Legion state tournament where Post 147 won three one-run games.

Congrats to Post 147 on a thrilling twoplus week ride in the post-season.

Congrats as well to Post 147’s softball representative, the Whittlesey Lions, who won the Division 1 state championship this past weekend in DeForest. Wisconsin’s American Legion softball program is still in its beginning stages. The 2024 state tournament was just its second and the field of teams isn’t nearly as large from a statewide perspective as baseball’s but it’s easy to foresee it growing as a way for high school teams or groups of players to work and play together in the summer and actually compete for something meaningful at the end.

This weekend’s title certainly was meaningful for Whittlesey’s group, which consists of six players from Medford and seven more from surrounding communities. Included in Whittlesey’s four wins at state was a 6-5 win over a Wausau team it lost to twice in the regular season.

This coming weekend, fans can turn their attention to the adults and the start of postseason competition for local players who are part of Dairyland League baseball teams. Whittlesey, Rib Lake, Interwald and Westboro will compete in the Wisconsin Baseball Association’s regional playoffs with Westboro going to Augusta, Whittlesey going to Park Falls and Glidden and Rib Lake and Interwald co-hosting a regional in the midst of Ice Age Days, the way it used to be before 2020.

The new twist is divisional play in the WBA tournament, giving small-town teams a shot to compete against each other rather than facing the big-city teams that have taken over the WBA in the last 10-20 years. In fact, Whittlesey will host the B Division finals next weekend and it’s possible two, three or even all four of the local teams could be in it. That would mean more work for me, but it would be exciting for those teams and their fans.

On the weekend of Aug. 24, the WBA’s 35and-older state tournament will be centered in Whittlesey with some games taking place in Rib Lake as well. Don’t forget, the Whittlesey Reds are the defending 35-andolder state champions.

The thing about August baseball is that it’s a major sign that, for many sports enthusiasts, football is also right around the corner. The NFL Hall of Fame Game and Green Bay’s Family Night have already been held, major college and 11-man high school practices are underway, NFL pre-season games start in full this weekend and I’ve already gotten my first, “what’s your Super Bowl prediction?” Thanks Saskatoon.

You can look really smart if your August Super Bowl prediction comes true, but truth is, if you get it right, you were probably more lucky than being some kind of savant. There are so many teams whose seasons will hinge on an injury or two, a play or two or a call or two in a close game or two or three. There are very few pushovers in the NFL. Almost everyone looks competitive, especially in August when teams are the healthiest they’re going to be.

Of course, most fans in this region focus on the NFC North, whether you’re a Cheesehead or have ties to the teams from bordering states. You’re starting to see the national headlines about the North possibly sneaking up on people this year for consideration as the best division in the NFL. And that’s the only bold prediction I can make right now. I’m going to say no one in the NFC North will be 8-9 or better.

I don’t think Detroit’s 2023 division title and run to the NFC Championship Game was a fluke. Heck, they should’ve beaten San Francisco. The Green Bay Packers should have too in the divisional round. They certainly let the 49ers off the hook. Youth could still bite the Pack at times, but these are exciting times in Titletown. The offense looks loaded and could we finally have a defensive coordinator who knows what he’s doing?

As much as Packers fans like to razz Bears fans about their lack of success in the last 33 years, Chicago has made some moves, including fleecing Carolina out of the numberone pick in the draft which landed them their new quarterback, Caleb Williams, that have the Bears looking much better on paper.

And, I know folks like to give Vikings fans grief because Sam Darnold is their starting quarterback, at least for now. Hey, that team still has Justin Jefferson, a good defensive coordinator and, as usual, they pounced on a departing Packer by signing Aaron Jones almost immediately after he sadly parted ways with Green Bay. Brian Gutekunst has made a lot of good moves the last couple of years as the Pack’s GM. But I think there had to have been a compromise there to keep the ultimate Packer around. Then again, if Jones pulls a hamstring again and Josh Jacobs runs for 1,200 yards in Green and Gold this fall, ***

which could happen, Gutekunst would again show why he earns the big bucks.

So far, I can’t say I’ve dug into the Paris Olympics much yet, but it is cool to see Rice Lake’s Kenny Bednarek excelling for the USA in the men’s 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. Bednarek reached the 100-meter finals, taking seventh in 9.88 seconds and had the fastest time of 19.96 seconds in the early rounds of the 200.

There are a good number of Medford sports fans who saw Bednarek, a 2018 Rice Lake grad, on the football field and/or on the track when he was in high school, and we all knew then he was fast. At state track meets, he made the competition look like it was standing still.

But it hits another level when you see what he’s doing against the world’s best. It’d be cool to see a guy you’ve seen in person locally win a gold medal.

Above: Medford’s Logan Baumgartner drops the bat and gets out of the batter’s box after putting down a perfect bunt down the first-base line that results in a base hit during the sixth inning of Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Seymour in the championship round of the Class AA American Legion state tournament. The single loaded the bases, but Seymour got out of the no-out jam to secure its state title. Upper right: Medford Post 147 catcher Blake Bargender gets the putout on Seymour’s Ethan Volz at the front end of an attempted double steal in the third inning of Tuesday’s game at West Salem. This was the second out of the inning and nearly got Medford out of a jam, but Seymour got a double from Carson Staffeldt in the at-bat to tie the game at 1-1. Lower right: Teammates congratulate JV Castillo (2) after his two-run homer in Saturday’s 11-5 loss to Seymour.