Published On: February 24th, 2009

Tomorrow afternoon the exhibition season for Major League Baseball officially begins with games being played throughout the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues. Later in the day, the Northwoods League’s second annual tour of Spring Training will begin as well. I, Curt Carstensen,will be joined by videographer George Sirbasku as we embark on a scheduled tour of 12 Spring Training games in 12 days. Like last year, the objective is to interview NWL alumni that are in big league camp to find out how their time in the Northwoods may have helped their baseball career.

Our first stop is the Seattle Mariners game against the San Diego Padres in Peoria, AZ on Thursday afternoon. Padres starting catcher Nick Hundley played for the Alexandria Beetles in 2004. Mariners relief pitcher Mark Lowe was with the Wisconsin Woodchucks in 2002 and 2003. Mariners journeyman non-roster invitee pitcher Chris Jakubauskas was a position player in his days with the St. Cloud River Bats in 1999.

George and I will look to interview those players prior to the game Thursday. I’ll be updating this blog throughout our travels which will continue on through Florida before wrapping up two weeks from today.

John Baggs Dies of Cancer

Some sad news today as the Northwoods League learned that the head coach from The College of St. Scholastica (Duluth, MN) John Baggs died today at the age of 42. This comes after a four-month battle with liver cancer.

Baggs had coached the Saints since 1992. A number of his players have spent time in the Northwoods League, including Rochester Honkers LHP Peter Burg who made both the mid-season and postseason all-star teams last season.

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