Frontier League Announces Annual Postseason Awards, Four Affiliated With Wild Things Honored
WASHINGTON, Pa. – Today, the Frontier League announced its annual postseason awards, as the 2017 season winds down. The awards include the postseason all-star team, individual awards and miscellaneous awards given for a variety of reasons. Two Wild Things’ players were honored, while an entity and writer have also been honored.
For the first time since 2012, a Wild Things’ player has been awarded the Fran Riordan Award, which is an annual award given out by the Frontier League for good citizenship off the field and in his community in the league. The award was won this year by outfielder Rashad Brown, who has exemplified good citizenship in his first year with the Wild Things. He’s been on appearances out in the public, taught at Wild Things-sponsored youth base camps and more.
Perhaps the most notable instance of why Brown won the honor, came when he didn’t expect. Karson Donahie, an 11-year old from the Wheeling area, lost his father less than a year ago. He was at a Wild Things’ game earlier this season and encouraged the players. Donahie loves the game. Brown ended up spending an afternoon in Wheeling with Karson, who had been through a lot and baseball season wasn’t easy without his dad. Brown and Donahie played catch and Brown gave Karson some batting tips. Karson was “on Cloud 9.” Brown was quoted after the fact saying he was the one that was truly touched. He said it meant the world to hang out with a kid who’s been through so much, but always has a smile on his face.
Brown is the first player since Gary Lee in 2012 to win the award while with Washington, and third overall, as Randy McGarvey won it in 2005.
Also honored today was first baseman Kane Sweeney. The proclaimed “Big Red Machine,” was named the first baseman on the league’s postseason All-Star team. Sweeney is now down to .289 for a batting average, but was one of the league leaders in that and several other categories this year. His 15 home runs are a top 10 total in the Frontier League, and his 85 walks are by far the most among all position players in the league. Sweeney has also made just two errors at first base all season. Sweeney is the first 1B to be named to the team since Ernie Banks in 2009 for the Wild Things, and is the first position player to be recognized with the All-Star honor for Washington since 2014, when fan-favorite CJ Beatty was named to the team for a second time.
Also picking up laurels are Chris Dugan and the Washington Observer-Reporter. For the fourth time in five years, Dugan has been named Writer of the Year and the O-R has been named Newspaper of the Year. Dugan and the paper have been honored with these two awards the most times for an writer or newspaper in Frontier League history.
Other Frontier League honors include Morgan Burkhart Award winner (MVP) David Harris of the Schaumburg Boomers and Evansville’s Max Duval, who won the Brian Tollberg Award for Most Valuable Pitcher. Harris is close to .350 with his batting average and has been a big reason why Schaumburg is where it is. Duval ttwas dominant in 87 innings this season before being purchased from the Otters. He had a 2.28 earned run average and 113 strikeouts in those innings. Thirty-two pitchers have more innings than Duval this season, as Duval’s Frontier League-season was cut short by his advancement to affiliated ball, but none in that time matched the numbers. Trevor Foss, the ace of the Wild Things staff, was second in Pitcher of the Year voting.
