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Catching up With...The 1994 Rochester Honkers
For local baseball fans, the summer of 1994 included its fair share of ups and downs.
While the Minnesota Twins (along with all of Major League Baseball) went on a strike that eventually led to the cancellation of the World Series, baseball of a less-complicated nature proved to be alive and well in Med City when the Rochester Honkers came to town.
One of the five original teams that were part of the Northwoods League (a league that was modeled after the professional minor leagues and made up of college players from around the nation who lived with host families), the Honkers ended up winning the league's inaugural title and the very first Northwoods League crown. Today, the 13-team league has been successful, and continues to draw fans (roughly 1,500 per night for the Honkers) and top-level talent: college-aged and college-eligible players spend their summer playing 64 games in 69 days and logging 7,000 miles of travel. They hope to get some summer wood bat experience (college players use the much lighter aluminum bats) while, hopefully, catching the eye of pro scouts.
Fifteen years and four Northwoods League championships later, we flash back in time with some of those Honkers to see where they were then and where they are in 2009.
Tom Carr
Head Coach/Field Manager
The right guy for the job: Before joining the Honkers, Carr worked at the Rochester Athletic Club, teaching private baseball lessons among other responsibilities. When the Northwoods League was formed and a team for Rochester was announced, “I was already in Rochester. I had had a few years of coaching in similar collegiate summer leagues so I was very interested in the opportunity,” Carr says.
It went both ways: Carr learned a lot about coaching from his players. “To this day I remember one home game where we went down 7-0 early. I was very upset that we were not playing well. Then one of our players, Dan Kneeshaw, came up to me during the game and asked me if I was giving up on this game. The team came back and won that game. That was a lesson learned.”
Credit for the coach: At the end of the championship season, Carr was named “Coach of the Year.” However, he is humble about the accomplishment. “I will never take credit for the success of that team. I take pride in the team I assembled with the help of my assistant, Larry Owens. I guess they had to give the award to somebody.”
These days: After his time with the Honkers, Carr went back to his position at the RAC for awhile before eventually returning to his native town of Albany, N.Y. He went back to school, earned his MBA, and worked in management, marketing, and public affairs positions before moving to the Adirondacks. He currently lives with his black lab retriever, Molly, in Lake Placid and has a management position in the hospitality industry.
Colin Brackeen
Pitcher
The big time: Brackeen joined the Honkers after a successful freshman season at St. Olaf College, a Division III school in Northfield. “I remember when the opportunity to play against Division I athletes came, I jumped at the chance.” Brackeen’s experience with the Honkers exceeded his expectations in many ways, he says. “I learned a lot as a Honker, from how to take care of my body to the myriad of ways to hold a change-up, to where the batboy can find the keys to the batters box.”
The bigger time: Brackeen was selected in the 15th round by the Toronto Blue Jays organization in the 1997 draft. “The Northwoods League provided a proving ground that changed me from a kid dreaming about playing professional baseball to a pitcher that actually had a shot at it.”
These days: Brackeen lives in Boston with his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
Dan Litzinger
Position In ‘94: Assistant Manager. As the AGM, Litzinger helped secure host families for players, coordinate and operate the concessions, produce the game’s between-inning antics, clean the stadium, and “chase raccoons away in the morning.” Litzinger also hosted a player that first summer. “Our first player was Scott Poepard, and for me, it was like having a younger brother come home for the summer.”
Position now: Owner/General Manager. Litzinger, GM since ’97, deals with sales, marketing, promotions, player personnel and recruitment. “I never dreamed of baseball being a career or this huge [a] part of my life. It just happened and I thank God it did. I’ve decided to stay with the Honkers this long as it is truly a passion, not a job. Tell me one job in the world where you get to be at a ballpark, sit back and watch thousands of people laugh, smile, cry and be with their family under the blue sky, all watching what you had a little part in making happen. Priceless.”
Winston Wood
Position In ‘94: General Manager. A California native who had previously worked for the San Jose Giants of the California League as an account executive and concessions manager, Wood experienced culture shock when he moved to snow-covered Minnesota a few months before the season began. “Not only was I the first Honkers GM, but it was my first time running the whole show. Further, I only had three months to get the thing off the ground,” Wood says. Wood remembers working closely with Litzinger and Northwoods League executive vice president Dick Radatz, Jr. “We were very much dreamers back then, very optimistic about what the potential was for the Honkers and the League.”
Birth of a mascot: “Kent Wildfeuer was handing out a signed pennant to a fan, something we did after a Honker hit a home run, and the local radio personalities and PA announcers forgot his name and referred to him as the ‘Mr. Clean-looking guy.’ He went home, shaved his head, put an earring in his ear, put on a white t-shirt and ‘Mr. Clean,’ the first Honker’s mascot, was born.”
These days: Wood lives in Minnetonka.
Mike Maslowski
Infielder
First Honkers hit: Maslowski, a native of Minnesota, hit ninth in the order on opening night and collected the very first Honkers hit and stolen base in team history. He fondly remembers the long lines of kids who would wait by the exit gates for the players after the games. “None of us were celebrities by any means, yet these kids would sometimes wait for an hour or more to get a chance to talk with us or have memorabilia signed.”
Band in the stands: One night a group of long-haired guys was sitting in the Mayo Field stands, Maslowski says, heckling and taunting opposing players. It turned out that the hecklers were REO Speedwagon, who were playing across the street that night. “They left us all back stage passes to watch the concert. After the game we all quickly cleaned up and raced over. They were great and signed our hats and posters and spent some time talking baseball with us after their concert.”
These days: Maslowski lives in Woodbury with his wife Molly, his son and a baby on the way. For the past eight years he has managed the Annuity Operations group at RBC Capital Markets in Minneapolis. “It’s not baseball,“ says Maslowski, “but then again, nothing else is.”
Dan Kneeshaw
Outfielder, Catcher
Baseball, baseball, and more baseball: Kneeshaw batted .353 with five of Rochester’s league-high 54 homers, and still owns the Honkers career batting average record. The atmosphere in the Northwoods League was “incredible,” he says. “We had the best crowds, always playing with a full house. Rochester is just a great place to play summer baseball. I could do it again in a heartbeat. I would not have gone anywhere else.”
These days: Kneeshaw and his wife of 11 years have two boys and currently live in Olathe, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. “I have been coaching my oldest son’s competitive tournament baseball team for the past three summers. My youngest son is just starting tee ball, so we spend a lot of time at the park,” says Kneeshaw.
Glenn Amundsen
Sketch Artist
Sketch artist?: “I was a Honker fan ever since they began playing here in Rochester,” says Amundsen. “My wife was on the Park Board at the time so we went to a lot of games together. I began taking pictures (of the players) and it was just natural for me to do some pencil or pastel rendering. Then I began to give them to the athletes. I wanted to thank them for coming and for giving us so much good entertainment. I hope they liked them as much as I did drawing them.”
Matt Ostrom
Outfielder
Finding a home: Unlike his teammates, Ostrom arrived in Rochester without a host family lined up. For a few weeks he lived in an unfurnished apartment without air conditioning. “It was hot and terrible. So Rick and Donna Townsend took me in to live with them. They were simply fans at that time and then they decided to start hosting when they had me move in. Super nice people.”
Baseball after the Honkers: Ostrom continued to step up to the plate in a baseball career that lasted after college. “I went back and finished my senior year out at the University of Iowa, graduating with a degree in accounting. At that point I had an opportunity to play minor league baseball. First in Hibbing, Minnesota, and eventually ending up in Canada to play in the Prairie League.”
These days: Ostrom is married and lives in Davenport, Iowa with his wife and three daughters. He owns a retail store, Active Endeavors, as well as an Internet business, QCActive.com.
Andrew Cornell
Outfielder, Pitcher
Homerun hero: Cornell joined the Honkers after playing his junior year at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. With the Honkers, Cornell hit .264 with 13 home runs, which earned him the nod as the All-Star team’s designated hitter. His homer total is still tied for second-most in a Honkers season.
Life lessons: Cornell says the biggest thing he learned from his season with the Honkers was that a group of complete strangers can come together quickly and over a short period of time accomplish something pretty special. This became important to him because, “in the business world, things are always changing and new people are being introduced into the workplace that you must adapt to quickly and find a way to work well together.”
Baseball career cut short: At the end of the Honkers season, Cornell tore his rotator cuff and labrum and needed shoulder surgery. Still, the 1994 inaugural season with the Rochester Honkers was one of the best summers of his life and the experience “will last a lifetime,” he says. These days: Cornell is a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch in Indianapolis. He plays in an adult baseball league.
Jason Washam
Catcher
MVP: Washam was voted MVP of the Honkers inaugural team. He still holds the league record with 19 homers in only 46 games, as well as many team records. “We had so many games in such a little time and only had a few days off. When we weren’t playing we were on the road. We just kept going and going and going day after day. We just kept winning. It was all about relying on your teammates, that bonding that happens and not giving up. We all became such great friends, leaned on each other and were there for each other. We all relied on each other to win and make it easy for the other guy.”
Minor league ball: After leaving the Honkers, Washam went to the University of New Orleans and then was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers organization, where he spent three years in their minor league system.
These days: Washam is a firefighter in Springfield, Illinois. He is married and has a 7-year-old child.
Larry Owens
Pitching Coach
What to expect?: “Prior to the season starting, because it was the first summer collegiate league of that area, we had no idea what the other teams were gonna be like,” Owens says. “We were kind of concerned with the caliber of the players we had signed. How did they compare to the rest of the league? And so I remember being nervous about that at the beginning of the year. Then once we got going and I saw that we had one of the better teams in the league, is was just memorable that we were first place the entire season from beginning to end.”
Looking back: “You learn something that can help you in life in everything you do. When you are teaching, organizing, or managing, in any setting, you’d better be able to deal with people for the most part. I think one of the main things my time with the Honkers gave me was the opportunity to learn to communicate with people. Turned out to be one of the best summer college baseball leagues in the country.”
These days: Since 2007, Owens has been the pitching coach for the Kannapolis Intimidators, a Chicago White Sox affiliate located in Kannapolis, North Carolina (though his permanent home is in Jeffersonville, Ind). Owens married Kelley, a former high school girlfriend, in 2008 and they had a son in May of ’09.
Scott Poepard
Infielder
Living with Litz: Scott Poepard lived with the Litzinger family, which included then-Assistant GM Dan Litzinger. “Living with Dan that year, I got to be part of the process [of starting a baseball franchise]. How it’s going to happen and what are we going to do and what do you think ... bouncing ideas off of each other and kind of like opening a new business. That is really the biggest thing that I remember about the first year. Being a young kid where you are living with one of the guys running a new team was pretty cool.”
Post-Honkers: Poepard finished up his college career at Kansas State, then signed with the Minnesota Twins and played minor league ball in Fort Wayne, Ind., for a year. A tear in his labrum and two surgeries later, Poepard was out of baseball. “When it’s something you have pretty much committed your entire life to and something out of your control happens like that, it is definitely a downer. I still can play softball though, so it’s okay.”
These days: Poepard, who holds a degree in hotel and restaurant management, works with the Brunswick Corporation in Blaine, Minn. He plays softball and is looking into getting into volunteer coaching. “The friendships and people that I met in Rochester [were] a great experience for me.”
Craig Zimmerli
Infielder
The keys to success: Originally from Warwick, N.Y., Zimmerli had just finished his freshman year at the University of Southern Missouri when his coach asked him to play summer ball in Rochester. Zimmerli enjoys reminiscing about all the people he met in 1994 and how the experience molded him as a baseball player. “I gained as a Honker the dedication it really takes for a young up-and-coming baseball player to succeed." Zimmerli says the season left him with a lifetime of reflections and fantastic stories to pass on to his children.
These days: Zimmerli, who recently got married, lives in his hometown and works at his family’s auto body shop as a head painter.
Gabe Wyckoff
Infielder
Looking back: In addition to the fact that “we pretty much walked away with the title,” Wyckoff has great memories of the host families, the fans, the coaches, the
management, and the players. Wyckoff went on to play for the Waterloo Bucks in 1995 and finished his collegiate career at the University of Northern Iowa.
These days: Wyckoff works in logistics for John Deere. He currently resides in Cedar Falls, Iowa with his wife, Heather, and their son, who is 2.