Classic Baseball Union

3-Peat CBU Champions

October 29th, 2019: Another page has been added to the Classic Baseball Union record book. The Brainerd Blue Ox have won their 3rd league championship with a 2-1 win against the Augusta Murderer’s Row.

They took the The CBU Championship Series 4-2 in games this season. In regular season play Brainerd finished with a record of 104-58 and ranked first in the Landis League Finley Division.

25-Year-Old Awesomeness

The Blue Ox are on the tip of everybody’s tongue with their back-to-back-to-back 3-Peat. Led by ace phenom Mathew Young. Young started 34 regular season games, sporting a 20-3 record, 1.69 ERA while striking out 232 batters in 208 innings pitched. The shoe in for the Sandy Koufax award, also continued his dominance in the playoffs by pitching 43 innings of 1.87 ERA ball with a 4-1 record. He also struck out 47 while walking just 8 during his post-season campaign.

Young wasn’t the only pitcher to do well, Blue Ox mainstays Jason Smith (21-7 2.82 ERA) and Allan Anderson (16-9 2.40) both spun great seasons once again. Lefty Nick ‘Backstreet’s Back’ Carter rounded out the playoff rotation with coming over from Charlotte to spin a 16-7 season with a low 3.33 ERA.

Much like last year’s team, the Blue Ox were just dominating on offense, defense and pitching. Unlike last year’s team, the 2019 Blue Ox dominated in all stat categories. First in all slash stats, home runs, extra base hits, walks, and runs scored. Catcher C Bill Rowland led the way with 28 homers,  3B Charles Porter followed with 28. 1B Si-dao Hsia and RF Augusto Huerta both added 20 and 26 home runs respectively.

The Blue Ox traditionally were a bottom feeder team reaching the playoffs only 6 times in the first 25 years of their history. The last 3 years have resulted in the three straight championships which vaulted them up the franchise championship leaderboard:

Tacoma Darners - 4 Championships
Brainerd Blue Ox - 3 Championships
Brooklyn Blue Sox - 3 Championships
Denver, Dijon, Portland, Redbank, & Savannah all have 2 championships.

The Giamatti League cannot buy a championship at this point. Brainerd’s 3-peat continues a Landis League championship streak that has lasted 6 seasons. The Blue Ox’s 3rd trophy marks the 19th for the Landis League, compared to the just 7 that the Giamatti League has won.