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ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A couple of California college kids who came north for a nonstop summer of baseball relaxed in the shaded grandstand one bright afternoon, before the gates opened and the Rochester Honkers hosted the Mankato MoonDogs.The two teams had just played a lunch-time game in Mankato and bused 80-some-miles across the flat farmland of south-central Minnesota to Rochester for the second half of this dual-city doubleheader, part of the 72-games-in-76-days schedule in the flourishing, fostering Northwoods League.Theres nothing Id rather be doing than be out here, said Casey Worden, a senior-to-be at UC Riverside who homered in the first game that day for the Honkers.The teammates marveled at the abundance of green grass around the five-state, one-province footprint of the league. They missed seeing the mountains but not the smoggy sky.And theres actually stars at night, said Mark Contreras, another UC Riverside rising senior.Future stars arent hard to find on the field, either.With Curtis Granderson, Chris Sale and Max Scherzer among the alumni, the Northwoods League has served as a meaningful stepping stone for many a college player to a professional career over two-plus decades. The reach of this 18-teams-and-growing league designed to simulate the minor league grind has only increased.I enjoy playing the game. Its a muse to me, Contreras said. If the draft does happen for me, then I have that confidence Ive lasted that many games and can do it here.The Northwoods League founders werent sure how long it would last past its 1994 inception. Dick Radatz Jr., a former college player with operational and promotional experience in the minor leagues and with major league spring training in Florida, needed a job and wanted to stay in the sport. So he helped spawn the league with a $25,000 down payment that drained his savings. There were five teams then, two of which remain in operation in their original city.A little bit of inspiration and a little bit of desperation, Radatz said. In the early years we were robbing Peter to pay Paul. If you had a good night in Wausau you had to get that money down to Dubuque to pay those bills.With a shorter season than the minors, the Northwoods League had fewer bad-weather nights on which to sell tickets. Games were affordable for families, and some teams created all-inclusive party decks to keep 20-somethings coming. The first alumnus to reach the majors, Jeff Weaver, debuted in 1999 for the Detroit Tigers.The for-profit model, with 5 percent of team revenues redirected to the league, fueled investment in innovation like an in-house webcast on track to feature four high-definition cameras at every site by next year. So many season subscriptions were sold that Google and YouTube started asking the league questions about its success. This year brought three-man umpire crews.Now the new-franchise fee is $1 million. League-wide attendance this summer entering the weekend was 1,597 per game, with a league-high average of 5,681 fans flocking to see the Madison Mallards. Next year could bring one to four expansion teams. The number of all-time alumni to reach the majors rose this month to 153 , with more than half since 2011 and 56 active this season.This is the best competition Ive seen my entire life, said MoonDogs All-Star Jordan Kozicky, a Minneapolis native who redshirted his freshman year at Minnesota.Current college enrollment is the only prerequisite for participation, with clubs recruiting players through connections at various NCAA programs. Strict rules protect pitchers, such as five days of rest required after appearances of 100-plus pitches. Relievers cant pitch on consecutive days.Gracious hosts house and feed the players when theyre in town.Its truly like a second family. They treat you like one of their own, Worden said.Travel is an integral part of the experience. The North Division stretches 500-plus miles from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Waterloo, Iowa. The eight teams in Wisconsin have a long way to go around the lake to get to Battle Creek or Kalamazoo in Michigan. Yes, thats a lot of napping. Its also time for players from different regions to bond over pizza or Mafia, the group strategy game that gets top billing on the MoonDogs bus.Anything thats this compacted is going to bring the best out of you, Honkers pitching coach Demetre Kokoris said. The more adversity, the better. The more games you play, the more scenarios that come up. Im a firm believer that the more challenging you can make things, the better off it is.The Cape Cod League, with 292 alumni playing in the majors in 2015 alone, has long been the amateur-league summer standard for pro prospects. It has 10 teams no more than an hour apart playing a 44-game schedule. Naturally, the Northwoods Leaguers are proud of their bus miles and game logs.I just focus on trying to get better every day and playing the game hard because you love it, said MoonDogs All-Star Jake Shepski, a Chicago-area native playing at Notre Dame who entered the weekend with a league-best .384 batting average and ranked in the top five in homers and RBI. Then I think everything will just work out the way its supposed to.Cheap Sneakers From China . After a lengthy wait, persistent rain finally forced the postponement of the Nationals game against the Miami Marlins on Saturday night. The teams, and a few thousand fans, waited nearly four hours from the 7:05 scheduled start time before an announcement was made shortly before 11 p. Cheap Shoes Stores Near Me . It was just business as usual for the Thunder at home. Durant scored 32 points and the Thunder beat the Bulls 107-95 on Thursday night for their eighth straight win. http://www.shoesonfire.ru/ . -- Sergey Tolchinksy scored his second goal of the game 3:56 into overtime as the Sault Ste. Wholesale Shoes China . The team also announced Tuesday that the Braves will wear a commemorative patch on the right sleeve during the season. The patch, shaped like home plate, carries the number 715, Aarons autograph and a "40th Anniversary" banner. Discount Shoes Website . The International Olympic Committee released the official list of bid cities on Friday after the deadline for applications had passed. The candidates -- all previously announced in their own countries -- are: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; Oslo, Norway; and Stockholm.The Rajkot Test was filled with tough lessons for India. But a draw was secured, and the team moves on to Visakhapatnam, its picture postcard beaches and possibly turning pitches.At the most recent international match played at the venue, Amit Mishra picked up five wickets and New Zealand were bowled out for 79 after having been 63 for 2. Before the start of that ODI, the host broadcasters pitch report suggested it would be a belter. Fifty or so overs in, it was turning from one corner to the other.Indias bowlers may not mind a similar setting come Thursday. They tend to work better when theres something in it for them, much the way children are far more inclined to do their chores when they get extra dessert at dinner. Work needs incentive and, often, it is in the form of chocolate cake.They werent too bad in Rajkot. In fact, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami were able to find reverse swing when it looked like none of Englands bowlers could. They created chances with the new ball on the first day but were let down by their fielders. R Ashwin, often the big brother pulling this bowling attack out of trouble, crafted two fine wickets to redress the dropped catches but from there on; from the second session of the Test, India slowly lost their way.It raised a familiar question. Can Indias bowlers be effective on a good pitch?Its a difficult proposition because the window of opportunity you have is quite small. Say the first half hour when you can expect some sideways movement. Making the batsman play as much as possible in this period is vital. So too is attacking each ones weaknesses. For example, India rarely tried to bounce Moeen Ali when they themselves had success with the ploy before. England were very keen to test Cheteshwar Pujara with the short ball.The other thing when dealing with stubborn pitches is having a clear plan and sticking to it. When the batsman knows there is no seam or swing or spin, when he can trust the pace and bounce, it is only the bowlers discipline that creates doubt: keeping the ball outside off stuump if he is susceptible to nicking off, getting closer if he tends to get bowled or lbw.dddddddddddd Be boring. Be repetitive. Play on his ego. Induce the mistake. Savour the triumph.India were lacking in this regard. At times, it seemed like they didnt have an idea of what they wanted to do. They were hoping for wickets rather than pushing for them. They were hoping to keep the runs down rather than devising ways to find wickets. They had an in-out field on the second morning in Rajkot. Yet, they conceded 21 boundaries in a single session. This spell of play forced India so far back in the match that it required their five batsmen to bat at their peak not once but twice to save it. Could they have done so had they conceded 537 runs in the first innings away from home? Losing the toss was a mitigating factor, a sizeable one. It meant India had to bowl when the pitch was at its most docile. England too conceded a total of 488. But they made the batsmen take a lot longer to get there. Chris Woakes took the pitch out of the equation with his pace. Stuart Broad was skillful enough to repeatedly hit a crack, which ran length-wise down the pitch, to see if it could give him some natural variation.There are ways to overcome a stubborn pitch. The margin of error is small and it often takes an exceptional effort to succeed but there are ways.Harking back to the Eden Gardens where India clinched the No. 1 Test ranking, Virat Kohli was noticeably chipper. He had won the Test mace a year into full-time captaincy, he had another series victory on his record and the signs pointed to dominance over the entire home season in 2016-17. But the reasons for his happiness were none of those things. The batsmen did well on a seamer-friendly surface. The fast bowlers outdid New Zealands, who were arguably more used to such conditions. Kohli had seen his team stand up to adversity. He wouldnt want that to be a one shot. ' ' '