2022 League Preview

Baseball greetings to all of our fans, followers, alumni, and friends. It is with sincerity that we would like to welcome you to another year of competitive amateur baseball within the storied Chippewa River Baseball League. Incredibly, 2022 marks the 94th season of play over 114 years, dating back to the CRBL’s first season of play in 1908. Very few baseball leagues across the USA – amateur or professional – can substantiate such an existence of length and success. Plainly stated, this is something that anyone associated with the CRBL should take great pride in.

2021 saw the full-fledge return of the Chippewa River Baseball League after the regrettable “Lost Season of 2020”. Playing entirely doubleheaders for the first time since the early 1980s, the CRBL was able to enjoy a full, 20-game slate for all eleven of its member teams.

Emerging from the four-month fracas to be crowned league champion was the Tilden Tigers, as they beat their North Division rival the Chippewa Falls Lumberjacks, 10-3 at Casper Park on August 8th. The championship was the league record 18th for Tilden, unequivocally the flagship franchise of the CRBL.

The Tigers continued their hot play the following weekend in the 73rd annual WBA Tournament. Of the seven CRBL squads that qualified for the WBA’s new “pool play” (minimum two game) format, Tilden was the only one to survive to the WBA Finals before losing to the Spooner Cardinals in the semis.

Looking ahead to 2022, the CRBL will be operating without divisions for the first time since 1972. With the departure of the Whitehall Wolves from the league’s landscape as well as the recent losses of Augusta, Hallie and Stanley, the CRBL managers voted to do away with the traditional North and South divisions and instead compete in one division.