A couple of California college kids who came north for a nonstop summer of baseball relaxed in the shaded grandstand one bright afternoon, before the gates opened and the Rochester Honkers hosted the Mankato MoonDogs.

The two teams had just played a lunch-time game in Mankato and bused 80-some-miles across the flat farmland of south-central Minnesota to Rochester for the second half of this dual-city doubleheader, part of the 72-games-in-76-days schedule in the flourishing, fostering Northwoods League.

“There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than be out here,” said Casey Worden, a senior-to-be at UC Riverside who homered in the first game that day for the Honkers.

The teammates marveled at the abundance of green grass around the five-state, one-province footprint of the league. They missed seeing the mountains but not the smoggy sky.

“And there’s actually stars at night,” said Mark Contreras, another UC Riverside rising senior.

Future stars aren’t hard to find on the field, either.

With Curtis Granderson, Chris Sale and Max Scherzer among the alumni, the Northwoods League has served as a meaningful stepping stone for many a college player to a professional career over two-plus decades. The reach of this 18-teams-and-growing league designed to simulate the minor league grind has only increased.

“I enjoy playing the game. It’s a muse to me,” Contreras said. “If the draft does happen for me, then I have that confidence I’ve lasted that many games and can do it here.”

The Northwoods League founders weren’t sure how long it would last past its 1994 inception. Dick Radatz Jr., a former college player with operational and promotional experience in the minor leagues and with major league spring training in Florida, needed a job and wanted to stay in the sport. So he helped spawn the league with a $25,000 down payment that drained his savings. There were five teams then, two of which remain in operation in their original city.

“A little bit of inspiration and a little bit of desperation,” Radatz said. “In the early years we were robbing Peter to pay Paul. If you had a good night in Wausau you had to get that money down to Dubuque to pay those bills.”

With a shorter season than the minors, the Northwoods League had fewer bad-weather nights on which to sell tickets. Games were affordable for families, and some teams created all-inclusive party decks to keep 20-somethings coming.