~~ By CHRIS CALLAWAY | christopher.callaway@lee.net

There was a time when Chris Goodell would spend days driving around the country trying to recruit players to come play for his baseball team.

One such example is a 2004 trip down to Missouri to take a look at a pitcher by the name of Max Scherzer.

The hunch was a good one because not only did Scherzer join the La Crosse Loggers to play that summer, he made it one step on a path to the 2013 American League Cy Young award.

It’s also one of the many stories that Goodell will tell about how the Loggers have become one of the most successful summer collegiate baseball teams in the country.

Goodell spends much more of his recruiting time now behind a computer or at his desk, but he also still hits the road to keep a successful string of seasons going.

And stories of finding Max Scherzers are becoming more and more prevalent for the organization.

There are over 400 summer collegiate teams around the country, and the Loggers keep finding ways to bring top players here.

The network that Goodell has developed in his 11-plus years as general manager of the Loggers has translated to success for all facets of the organization.

Images and memorabilia of the 2012 Northwoods League championship team adorn many different corners of the Loggers’ headquarters on the north side of La Crosse.

While he has no trouble recalling stories and anecdotes from the Loggers first game in 2003, the focus is always on the future.

“You have to stay ahead of the game because it’s so competitive,” Goodell said. “It’s competitive enough in our league, but if you throw in the Cape Cod League, that’s who we’re trying to go after.”

Assembling a roster with the amount of talent to which fans at Copeland Park have become accustomed takes plenty of planning.

Goodell is hesitant to admit that he has the system down pat, but he will say that the Loggers’ front office has come a long way over the past decade.

“If you’re not thinking at least a year in advance, you’re behind the curve,” Goodell said, talking about how teams need not only plans A, B and C for the upcoming season, but also D, E and F just in case.

“Everyone in the Northwoods League should have a good plan A, but only a portion of that plan A ever takes the field.”

From classes to injuries to the MLB draft to a vast spectrum of different reasons, Goodell says that there is “never a scenario” where the team on paper in January is the same team wearing pinstripes in La Crosse come May.

“But you know that going in. And I’ll fully confess, in our first years, our plan Bs and Cs were not well thought out, and that’s completely on me,” Goodell said. “You find that out the hard way.”

It’s an approach that gets refined year after year, so that the team isn’t left scrambling to find a key component of the roster a week before the season.

Each summer of baseball at Copeland Park helps to expand the Logger network around the country and provide Goodell with as many resources as possible to field a winning team.

And it’s no coincidence that players from the same colleges keep finding their way back to La Crosse year after year.

“Teams trust us to take care of their players and treat them right, so that when we send them back, they’re better than when they came in,” Goodell said. “If we’re not sending them back as better ball players than when they got here, why would they keep sending them to us?”

It’s that focus on the improvement of each player coming through the organization that helps the Loggers stand out among its peers in the Northwoods League.

“Do college coaches care what our win-loss record is? I wouldn’t say it’s high on their priority list,” Goodell said. “What they want to know is that we’re doing the right thing and taking care of guys and giving them an opportunity to get better.”

The belief is that there is a trickle down effect: as the organization develops players, they get better as individual, which improves the team as a whole and ultimately results in more victories and championships.

It’s hardly rocket science, but it’s the developmental aspect that Goodell, as well as team owners Dan and Ruth Kapanke, bought into when Andy McKay arrived in La Crosse to be the team’s manager in prior to the 2008 season.

Goodell references the 2007 team as a unique group, one that, by his recollection, had 16 players — three of them first-round draft choices — go on to play pro baseball.

That team finished 27-41.

“We talked about winning first back then, and we felt it was the right way to go,” Goodell said. “Andy came in and changed that philosophy.”

That torch has been passed to the current Loggers manager Jason Nell, who took over at the beginning of the 2013 season.

His entire staff, including pitching coach Mike Siwiec and assistants Brian Lewis and Juan Carlos Calderon, will be back this summer to continue that method of teaching.

“All four of those guys believe in dedicating their time to developing players,” Goodell said. “That’s not the norm.”

Goodell said that the ability to put a winning team on the field extends beyond the front office.

“As I’ll tell everyone — host families, the crowd, everyone — we’re all recruiters. I get the fun part in making a lot of these decisions, but they all play a role.

“If we didn’t have the great fans that we do, we can’t recruit as well. Host families, owners, coaches – everyone plays a role.”

That’s added up to not only a million fans passing through the gates at Copeland Park since the team played its first game in 2003, but also to an increased expectation level for all parties involved.

“With as passionate of fans as we have, I feel we owe it to them to give them the quality product that they deserve,” Goodell said.

The Loggers have displayed just that, winning over 60 percent of their games since 2008 with a record of 251-164.

“We’re seeing the end result. If we weren’t, we’d just be blowing smoke,” Goodell said. “Those numbers over the past six years don’t lie.”

 

Family connection

There are plenty of connections that Loggers general manager Chris Goodell routinely taps into when he assembles the team roster year after year.

Whether it’s a west coast school like California or Long Beach State, a southern school like Texas A&M or Dallas Baptist or anywhere in between, it’s no secret that players from the same schools show up in La Crosse every year.

The 2014 Loggers roster will have its share of familiar collegiate connections, but it will also have four unique family ties as well.

The organization has had younger brothers of former team members on the team before, but having four in one season is a testament to the fact that La Crosse is a place players enjoy coming to every summer.

Here are four players who are expected to play at Copeland Park this summer, and their sibling connections to the team:

• Aaron Knapp, California, brother of 2011 Loggers MVP Andrew

•Trevin Haseltine, San Francisco, brother of Jordan, a pitcher on the 2011 and 2012 teams
•Jack Meggs, Washington, brother of 2012 Logger Joe
•Nash Knight, Dallas Baptist, brother of 2009 Loggers player and Texas A&M assistant coach Austin