Source: Frontier League getting larger in ’27
With 18 teams scattered across 10 states and two countries, the Frontier League is the largest independent professional baseball organization. In addition to having a new name next year, it will be an even bigger league.
The Observer-Reporter has learned that the Frontier League will add two teams for the 2027 season. They will not be expansion clubs. Two teams will shift from the American Association to the Frontier League, a source said.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes have not yet been announced.
According to the source, the teams changing leagues will be the Kane County Cougars, located in Geneva, Ill., just west of Chicago, and the Cleburne Railroaders. Cleburne plays in Texas, 30 miles south of Fort Worth, and is about a seven-hour drive from any other Frontier team.
Kane County and Cleburne are owned by REV Entertainment, a group that also owns the Texas Rangers and the Frontier League’s Schaumburg Boomers.
That means the far-flung league will be in 11 states and have four teams in the Chicago suburbs next year. The Frontier League announced before this season began that it will change its name to the National Association of Professional Baseball in 2027.
When the league goes to 20 teams, it can balance the schedule with 10 teams in each conference. Currently, with an 18-team format and nine teams in each conference, there must be at least one interconference series each night. For example, Joliet began a series at Quebec on Tuesday. This format is a schedule-maker’s nightmare.
Adding a team in Chicago and one in Texas to the Midwest Conference would mean one club must shift to the Atlantic Conference. The likely candidates are the Wild Things and Lake Erie. Washington is the easternmost team in the Midwest Conference and Lake Erie is the closest to Canada, which is home to three Atlantic teams.
• Fort Cherry catcher Colton Temple, who narrowly missed winning the WPIAL baseball triple crown each of the last two seasons, recently announced on social media that he has committed to play in 2028 in the PSAC.
A senior, Temple will play for East Division power West Chester. The Rams were the NCAA Division II runner-up this year.
As a junior, Temple won the WPIAL home run title this spring for the second year in a row when he hit 10. He also tied for second in the RBI with 33 and had a .510 batting average.
• It’s wise to do the math when you see statistical information on social media. For example, my X timeline recently had a post about high school football participation in Pennsylvania and how the numbers have significantly dropped. That much is true.
But the numbers shown to support this can’t possibly be correct. The post showed that in 1973 there were 911 high school teams with 72,880 players. In 2024, the number of teams had dwindled to 554 with 27,700 players.
If you look at the 1973 numbers, a time when there were many more small Class A schools than there are today, the average number of players at each school would have been 80. That doesn’t compute.
N My inbox is flooded daily with emails from organizations touting all kinds of sports information, most of it useless to those in this corner of Western Pennsylvania. One email that caught my attention recently was from a sports media data company that touted the “dirtiest teams in college football” based on penalties enforced, penalty yards, first downs allowed by penalty and penalties per play over the past six years.
Alabama-Birmingham was deemed the “dirtiest” team, the data revealed, as the Blazers were the most penalized program. They were followed by Toledo, New Mexico and then Pitt. The Panthers averaged 7.55 penalties per game and almost 2½ first downs allowed via penalty. Is that a result of coach Pat Narduzzi’s aggressive man-to-man pass coverage schemes or undisciplined play?
Or both?
The “cleanest” teams were Army, Air Force and Iowa.
Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com