The five most awesome baseball team names from western Wisconsin

Tom Giffey |

HAGER CITY SKEETERS
No small-town Wisconsin summer would be complete without both baseball and mosquitoes. The folks in the Pierce County burg of Hager City embraced this fact when they picked this blood-sucking nickname for their St. Croix Valley Baseball League team.

BLOOMER FIGHTIN’ WOODTICKS
And while we’re talking about the insect realm ... You can keep your “fierce” tigers, lions, or bears: Those of us in the northwoods know the most insidious critter around here is this miniature eight-legged monster. Fortunately neither real woodticks nor the members of this Chippewa River Baseball League team carry Lyme disease.

JIM FALLS STURGEONS
These jumbo-sized prehistoric fish – which can be found in the Chippewa River near Jim Falls – won’t win any aquatic beauty contests. But that probably makes them all the more intimidating when they take the field during the Chippewa River Baseball League season.

BEEF RIVER BULLFROGS
You’ll notice there’s not a single mammal on this list. Leave it to the big leaguers to choose the obvious animals: Small-town folks, like those in Strum, are more creative when it comes to mascot selection. (They also get bonus points for using meaty-sounding Beef River in their name.) Let’s just hope the Bullfrogs don’t croak during the CRBL homestretch.

EAU CLAIRE EXPRESS
OK, we’ll acknowledge that the Express don’t have a name as cool as some of the above teams. But the Northwoods League club belongs on this list anyway because of the awesome ambiguity of its mascot, Trax. This rotund, camel-footed mutant Muppet looks like Grimmace’s train-engineer cousin, and that’s why we love him.