Northwoods League

The Northwoods League is a collegiate summer baseball league comprising teams of the top college players from North America and beyond. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. Players are not paid, so as to maintain their college eligibility.

Teams are run similar to a professional minor league team, providing players an opportunity to play under the same conditions, using wooden bats and minor league specification baseballs. Teams play 70 games scheduled over a 76-day season running from early June to mid-August. The season itself is broken into two halves, with the winners of each half in each of the two divisions meeting first in a playoff to determine a divisional champion. The divisional champions then meet in a playoff for the league championship.

The Northwoods League has more teams, draws more fans and plays more games than any other Summer Collegiate Baseball League. Many of the teams in the league play in ballparks formerly occupied by professional clubs from the Midwest League, Prairie League and the Northern League. The wooden bat circuit allows communities deemed too small for pro ball to continue to enjoy high quality, competitive baseball during the summer months. The League has had 277 of its alumni taken in the last two Major League Baseball Amateur Drafts including three first round selections in 2009 and the fourth selection overall.

The teams are located in the Northwoods region of the Upper Midwestern United States and Southern Canada, mostly in the U.S. states of Minnesota (with 6 teams) and Wisconsin (with 7 teams), also with one team each in Iowa, Michigan and Ontario.