Local baseball team has come a long way in 16 years
By Mike Ramczyk
Sports editor
The year was 1997.
A wide-eyed University of Wisconsin–Whitewater sophomore named Ryan Hoffman was back in his hometown of Burlington after playing college baseball for the Warhawks.
A teenager at the time, the now-35-year-old player/manager for the Burlington Barons wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. But he knew he wanted to play baseball.
“It was my first summer home from college,” Hoffman said Wednesday. “I was 19 years old, and I was just happy there was a team to play for.”
Now, the Barons are just a game away from the Land ’O Lakes Grand Championship. The Barons won the Southwest Division to advance to the Grand Championship playoffs, and had a 2-1 record going into Saturday’s winner-takes-all game against Pewaukee at Sussex at 2:30 p.m.
Hoffman, who starred in the mid-1990s for the Burlington High School Demons, along with Joe Milroy, a former Catholic Central High School standout, were two of the original Barons under manager Bud Milroy.
Players had to pay a fee to play, umpires had to get paid and baseballs weren’t cheap. Burlington was an independent team that had to recruit players from the Waterford Rivermen as well as local high school players.
Eventually, the Barons joined the Wisconsin State League, one of the premiere leagues in the state. Guys like Hoffman, Joe Milroy, Matt Spellman and Aaron DeGrave made for an older, yet extremely talented core. The Barons were quickly becoming the baseball team to watch in the city.
But each triumph didn’t come without hardship. The Barons were traveling to places like Sheboygan, Janesville and Milwaukee on a regular basis, and there wasn’t much of a local feel.
“The travel was a bit much,” said Bud Milroy, who now acts as more of a general manager dealing with off-field issues. “We wanted to switch to play against area teams like Waterford and East Troy.”
“There was definitely a lull,” Hoffman added. “We dropped out of the WSL, but the Land O’ Lakes wouldn’t let us in. There weren’t a lot of college-level players around anymore.”
The Barons and the LO’L eventually made peace, though, and Burlington will be playing in their first Land O’ Lakes Grand Championship title game Saturday.
The Land O’ Lakes let the Barons get back on the field, and the team was a bit more on the recreational side until about four years ago.
That’s when the Burlington Rotary Club – a local business and service organization – stepped in. The team hasn’t been the same since.
The Rotary brought in a “pretty good sum of money,” said Hoffman, and renovations to Beaumont Field and the start of a Burlington Baseball Hall of Fame ensued. Couple these things with the fact that Burlington’s two high schools were pumping out college-caliber talent, and the rest is history.
“The Rotary really helped us,” Hoffman said. “The money is huge. It costs $200-$250 to play a home game, umpires get $150 a game and 12 baseballs cost $60. We’ve had the luxury of playing 50 games in two leagues this year thanks to the Rotary. It’s kept local players in Burlington.”
Hoffman said the “big push” from Rotary in 2010 kept the team alive, but the talent was everywhere. Standouts like Rex Morrow, Mike Porcaro, Dylan Friend, Tell Taylor and Nick Uhen carried on the tradition Hoffman and the Milroys started nearly 20 years ago.
Today, Hoffman said, three-quarters of the team consists of college baseball players. Porcaro plays in the Northwoods League at Concordia University in the summer, which showcases some of the Midwest’s top baseball talent.
Pewaukee the real deal
Much like the current Barons, the Pewaukee Muskies feature top-notch talent.
“We are missing a lot of our college players, who are all back at school,” Hoffman said. “Pewaukee has a core of former college studs from UWM, Whitewater and Oshkosh.”
The biggest challenge could be hitting. The Barons only scored one run on eight hits in last Saturday’s playoff loss to Pewaukee.
And the obstacles keep coming. Ace pitcher Brian Henschel suffered an injury in that game, and Hoffman said he may not be able to pitch this weekend.
“We’ve had to scramble,” Hoffman said. “I had to call up Dane Helnore, who is a current Burlington High School player. The biggest thing will be if we can score runs. If Brian can’t go, Karl Richter will pitch, and he will do just fine.”
Richter is a 16-year Barons veteran who is currently the team’s No. 2 starter. Hoffman, who was a top-of-the-rotation guy a few years back, has only started one game this year. He took over on-field managerial duties in 2008.
His maturation as manager is evident in the way the team performed this season. At 29-15, the Barons have relied on a plethora of young arms – players like Cody Peterson, Morrow and Nolan Friend, who can all run it up there in the high 80s.
“Henschel is a double-digit strikeout guy who doesn’t walk anybody,” Hoffman said. “We never ran out of pitching the entire summer. I went from the No. 2 to the No. 10.”
Burlington boasted a roster of 30 this year. The baseball talent pool is as deep and expansive as the Fox River. Hoffman credits high school coaches like Scott Staude (BHS) and Tom O’Connell (CCHS) with the rapid development.
“Burlington has more college players than ever,” Hoffman said. “We have as many as 10 former Demons playing college ball right now. The quality of baseball in this town is great.”
For Bud Milroy, who rarely misses a Barons game, it’s great that the team is so successful.
“Both high schools have great programs,” he said. “For college-bound kids who want to keep their skills sharp, the Barons can offer that. We have great facilities, and it seems like a natural progression to join an adult team.”
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