Andrea Jaskowiak knows a little bit about pressure and drama from the pitcher’s mound. After all, the Iowa Hawkeyes softball pitcher threw a perfect game with 15 strikeouts when she was in high school.

But last month in her hometown of Madison, Wis., it was a different kind of pressure. As she faced an opponent, more than 2,000 pairs of eyes were on Jaskowiak as if a championship were on the line. Instead, it was beer. Jaskowiak was facing the designated Beer Batter, and if she struck her out there would be 2-for-1 beers at the stadium for the next half inning.

“It’s a big thing. When you get two strikes on them, the whole crowd starts chanting, ‘Strike her out! Strike her out!’” Jaskowiak said. “As a pitcher you think, ‘Oh jeez, I really need to strike her out.’ But when I actually did it, it made people so happy. The whole stadium erupted.”

Welcome to the Northwoods League, a longtime amateur summer baseball league that expanded into softball this summer. Since 1994, Northwoods baseball has combined the opportunity for college players to hone their skills with summer competition with a minor league-type environment (as in goofy entertainment).

While the baseball league has 26 teams, the softball league is launching with four – the Madison Night Mares, the La Crosse Steam, the Minot Honeybees and the Mankato Habaneros.

“With the infrastructure we had in place with Northwoods League baseball, we thought with the popularity of softball and the surge in women’s sports it felt like the right time to do this,” said league president and commissioner Kathryn Reynolds, a former Iowa women’s basketball player and assistant coach. “Players, coaches, umpires can all improve over the summer. It’s all about elevating the sport.”

Like many other women’s sports, softball has seen a boost in recent years. The Women’s College World Series keeps topping its own TV ratings. Athletes Unlimited, a network of professional leagues for a variety of women’s sports, will launch a traditional format softball league in 2025. Six teams will play 30 games; the teams won’t be based in cities the first season but will tour until they represent cities in 2026. Current AU softball mixes team rosters over the course of its season based in Rosemont, Ill.

The Northwoods League, Jaskowiak said, was an opportunity that made sense in many ways. Being from Madison, she didn’t have to live with a host family as many players do. Her freshman season at Iowa was as a reliever, now she’s getting experience as a starter. She’s already pitched more innings than she did last spring as a Hawkeye.

“I thought I’d be working out on my own with strength training this summer, I didn’t think I’d be playing live,” said Jaskowiak, who also gives pitching lessons to make summer money.

College summer leagues play throughout the country, including the Iowa Women’s Softball League with four teams that in the Cedar Rapids area. The IWSL also draws college players from all levels, minus the wacky minor-league atmosphere.

In Madison, a horse named Midnight does a lap of the field before the game. There’s also a mascot version of the horse (with a bobblehead giveaway of it, of course). There are hot dog and chicken wing eating contests. During pre-game introductions, the Night Mares’ leadoff batter heads to home plate from the outfield on a zipline.

“I’ve never played in such a fun environment,” said Jaskowiak, grateful she is not the leadoff batter.

Madison’s season opener drew 2,322 people at Warner Park, where the baseball Madison Mallards play.

“When you see that, you see that there is interest and then you work on getting people to come back to the ballpark,” Reynolds said.

The locations were chosen in part because of their facilities. The infield had to be turf, for weather reasons and bounce/roll reasons. Temporary outfield fences are set up to bring the diamond to softball dimensions.

The goal is to grow the league, and the first-year imprint is not unlike the baseball league that started with just five teams.  But, Reynolds said, the biggest challenge is facilities.

“You travel all over this country and see baseball stadiums, but you don’t see softball stadiums unless you’re on a college campus,” Reynolds said.

That means the league is working to build relationships with locations that don’t necessarily have a Northwoods baseball team. (For what it’s worth, Iowa softball’s Pearl Field is turf.) In addition, Reynolds said, some Northwoods baseball sites are interested in softball but this summer was too soon to commit.

Reynolds comes from a baseball family – her father, Terry, has had a long career in scouting and administration with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds organizations and her brother, J.R., is a Reds scout. Dick and Kathy Radatz, co-founders of the Northwoods softball league, are family friends.

“I had an amazing experience at Iowa, I wouldn’t trade it at all,” Reynolds said. “This was an opportunity to be in a leadership position in something brand new. How often do you get to be part of building something from the ground up?”

Games are shown live on the league’s app, as well as some being shown on ESPN+ and the Women’s Sports Network, a streaming channel.

Jaskowiak has a 6-1 record for the Night Mares. She’s thrilled to have the opportunity to play in the new league right in her own backyard, while also having teammates from around the country. And she’ll have more summers to potentially join up again and see where the league goes.

“There isn’t anything like this across the country,” she said. “It’s going to be awesome to see it grow in the next couple years.”

Share

Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”