The 85-Year-Old Pioneer League Has a New Homerun King – Adam Fogel!
Missoula, MT. – Missoula PaddleHeads' slugger Adam Fogel is the new "Homerun King" of the 85-year-old Pioneer League. Fogel crushed a 375' homerun to right field on Thursday night to pass former PaddleHeads Jayson Newman's all time Pioneer League record of 32 homeruns in a season with homerun #33 on the season. Ironically, Newman and Fogel are friends away from the field, growing up in southern California together. Fogel hit 33 in Missoula's first 81 games. An amazing pace no one has ever come close to matching in the league. Newman's record happened over a 96-game season in 2022. Fogel now has much more baseball ahead to build it even further as the PaddleHeads have 15 games remaining after tonight in the regular season.
In a sign of the PaddleHeads success over the past four seasons, Fogel becomes the 3rd PaddleHeads player to break the record since 2021. Newman broke the record in 2022 set by Former PaddleHeads and Osprey Zac Almond who set it in 2021 with 26 homeruns. Prior to Almond, the Pioneer League record was 23 set by Gregory Morrison of the Medicine Hat Blue Jays in 1997. From 1963 to 2020 the Pioneer League played a 76-game schedule showing how special Fogel's accomplishment is. Fogel still reached the 32 Homerun mark within the old 76 game schedule. From 2021, the Pioneer League now plays a 96-game schedule.
Fogel has his sights set on some other accomplishments as well. He is contending for the Pioneer League's triple crown in hitting which occurs when a player leads the league in batting average, homeruns, and RBIs. He currently is 3rd in Batting Average behind teammate Mike Rosario who leads the league at .401. Fogel is at .395 before play tonight. However, he is 1st in homeruns over Rocky Mountain's Steven Rivas with 32 to Rivas' 27 and he is 2nd in RBIs to Rivas 101-100 entering the game tonight.
The PaddleHeads start a 9-game road trip tomorrow with 3 games at Glacier, Friday through Sunday, and then 6 games at Great Falls, next Tuesday through Sunday, September 1st.
The PaddleHeads return home for their final regular season homestand beginning on Tuesday, September 3rd and running nightly through Sunday, September 8th. The Billings Mustangs will be in town.
The playoffs begin the second week of September with Missoula playing a yet to be determined opponent on the road Tuesday, September 10th in game 1 before hosting Games 2 and 3 on Thursday and Friday, September 12th and 13th. The first round is a a best of 3 game series to qualify for the Pioneer League Championship Series.
Tickets for the remaining home games and playoff games are available now at www.gopaddleheads.com or by visiting the box office at the PaddleHeads Post Gift Store in downtown Missoula located at 140 N. Higgins Ave
