View from the cheap seats
A weekly perspective on sports
Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review
Because the 2020 MLB season is in limbo, I have begun watching Marshfi eld Chapparrals Wisconsin amateur baseball games.
I’d always get excited for the Milwaukee Brewers’ season opener each year, but at least the Chapparrals began playing baseball games last Wednesday. I wore my Chapparrals baseball cap while watching the sport I love for the first time this year during the team’s home game against the Everest Merchants.
Marathon High School head baseball coach Steve Warren attended the game to watch his former baseball player, Koleman Schilling, play for the Everest Merchants. Koleman is the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point at Wausau.
Luke Wirtz, who is the Chapparals second baseman and head coach, told me the team has more players from the Wisconsin Rapids area than usual on the squad this summer, likely due to the state American Legion season being cancelled because of the coronavirus.
For example, I also attended the Chaparrals’ home win against the Medford Moondogs on Sunday night, in which Marshfield used three college pitchers from the Wisconsin Rapids area to earn a 4-3 win.
Donavan Brandl of Rudolph, who plays college baseball at UW-Whitewater, was the Chaparrals’ starting pitcher against the Moondogs. Caleb Krommenakker, also of Rudolph, was the team’s relief pitcher and
Ethan Peters of Wisconsin Rapids, who plays baseball at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, earned the pitching save.
Krommenakker will be Pointers college baseball teammates with Athens brothers Marshall and Connor Westfall next spring.
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Reed Lehman, an Edgar native and former star Wildcats football player, is the new head football coach of the Neillsville/Granton Wardogs. He is a third grade teacher at Neillsville Elementary School.
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It was interesting to see Alvie Lutz share a copy of the 1967-68 Pointers college basketball roster, which includes Dennis Cramer of Marathon, on the “You Know You’re From Marathon, Wis.” Facebook page.
The Pointers’ roster states Cramer was a freshman center, who measured six feet, three inches tall and 200 pounds during the 1967-68 season.
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Derek Kraus of Stratford, who is a NASCAR Gander RV and Outdoors Truck Series driver, returns home this Thursday night, June 18, to race in the Flip Merwin Memorial at State Park Speedway in Rib Mountain.
