It’s difficult to find a boomer – a nickname for the endangered greater prairie chicken – out in the open and prominently featured, unless you know where to look.

It’s not difficult to find the professional baseball team that borrows the animal’s moniker, the Schaumburg Boomers, distinctly standing on top of the pack in the Frontier League.

Schaumburg was a bit of a late arrival to the Frontier, only recently having completed its first decade in the league, but independent baseball fans know the team has established itself as a major player since running onto the scene. 

Multiple championships and winning seasons have earned the Boomers some respect and demanded teams to come prepared whenever they see them on the schedule, whether that’s for a mid-July weekend series or a cutthroat September playoff showdown.

Schaumburg’s sustained run of success is not one it’s planning on breaking anytime soon – especially with numerous personnel on the roster, both on and off the field, who are highly experienced and have been key pieces of title-winning teams before. 

24 HOURS.

Who’s excited?

Thank you to @salvimedia #boomercountry pic.twitter.com/26xqBod4NM

— Schaumburg Boomers (@boomersbaseball) May 18, 2023

It may be a rarity to see the animal out in the wild, but at their home base of Wintrust Field and the many other Frontier ballparks they visit across the country, the Boomers are impossible to ignore.

Here’s a look at what the Schaumburg Boomers bring to the table for the 2023 Frontier League campaign, much of which will be streamed live, exclusively on FloBaseball.

2022 record/finish: 53-43, second in West Division, lost in Championship Series to Quebec Capitales

Background

Founded in 2011 and based in a Chicago suburb, the Boomers have been one of the Frontier’s most consistent ball clubs since joining the league, never winning less than 40 games, with an impressive record of four league championships (2013, 2014, 2017, 2021). 

They were close to back-to-back titles for the second time last season. 

They took down the Washington Wild Things in the West Division Series, before bowing out to white-hot Quebec in four games, and there’s a lot to like about this season’s unit, too.

The Boomers are 6-5 to start the year, return much of a strong pitching rotation that led the league in strikeouts (921) and is veteran-heavy on the mound. 

The lineup is where most of the newcomers are placed, and though parts of the offensive arsenal are trying to figure things out (.245 team batting average as of Saturday morning), manager Jamie Bennett – the only head coach Schaumburg has ever had – usually finds a way to get the best out of his guys somehow, someway, as evidenced by his strong resume in leading the Boomers to numerous accolades over the past decade-plus.

Hitting

Let’s start by talking about the quirkiest returning part of the Boomers’ lineup: Chase Dawson. 

Now in his third year with the Boomers, the outfielder and past Frontier All-Star from Indiana, had to his name of the wildest statistics in all of professional baseball in 2022 – he hit 24 triples, smashing the Frontier’s previous record of 16 and having over two and a half times more three-baggers than the MLB’s leader (Amed Rosario, nine) in far fewer games. 

Ironically, the two-time Frontier triples leader doesn’t have one yet through 11 games in 2023, but he is one of the team’s better players at the plate (.292 average as of this writing).

The Boomers still are trying to find ways to round the bases, especially considering that Schaumburg is anchored to the bottom of the Frontier in runs scored with a league-low 47 entering Saturday’s games. 

Part of that is because there are a lot of rookies who have promise, but they also trying to develop on the fly. 

If you had Drue Galassi to hit the first homer of the year for the Boomers, you were right! Check out the highlight from last night in the fifth inning with @TCPopcorn on the call pic.twitter.com/HmqWJ7JUmH

— Schaumburg Boomers (@boomersbaseball) May 12, 2023

Leading hitter Gaige Howard, a late addition to the clubhouse after he spent time with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Single-A affiliate earlier in the year and even had an at-bat for the major-leaguers in spring training, is batting .306 in his debut season in independent ball and has shown good plate discipline, drawing the second-most walks (11) of any player in the Frontier. 

Outfielder Miles Simington also could be bound for a summer breakout.

The former Purdue and South Alabama player – who won the Sun Belt Conference’s batting title in his final season with the Jaguars in 2022 – holds a .303 average to join Howard as the only two Boomers currently above the .300 threshold going into the weekend.

Pitching

This is the Boomers’ bread and butter and the main reason Schaumburg holds a winning record despite their early-season offensive struggles. 

The staff has tossed six games where it’s given up three runs or less, including four in which it’s allowed just a single run. A starting crew that includes the likes of Aaron Glickstein, Luis Perez and Miguel Reyes all have started the year with ERAs under 3.00. 

Perez, in particular, who returned to Schaumburg after being acquired midseason in 2022 from the Gastonia Honey Hunters of the Atlantic League, has been sending opposing batters back to the dugout for fun, recording 25 strikeouts (second-most in the Frontier as of Saturday morning) to just four walks, while holding a 2-0 record and 2.61 ERA across 20 2/3 innings. 

He’s going to be an important part of the rotation for the time being, as Bennett clearly thinks highly of the Dominican Republic native, granting him the start in Game 1 of both playoff series last season.

Luis Perez is excited to perform in front of the best fans in the league! #winitwednesday #boomercountry pic.twitter.com/0TMhwXCPQY

— Schaumburg Boomers (@boomersbaseball) April 19, 2023

When Japanese hurler Shumpei Yoshikawa – one of the top punch-out artists returning in the West Division with 117 Ks in 2022 – returns from the inactive list (as the team has indicated in news releases that he will), the Boomers will really be in business. 

Meanwhile, the bullpen is grizzled and skilled at shutting the door on opponents, already recording four saves. 

Right-hander Jake Joyce, one of the Frontier’s all-time appearance leaders in his seventh season in Schaumburg, has two of them, while elsewhere, third-year bullpen artists Kristian Scott (2-0, 2.84 ERA, 10 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings in 2023) and Dylan Stutsman (0.00 ERA, nine strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings in 2023) have emerged as reliable options in relief.

Outlook

The pitching unit, which is, and likely will stay, as one of the best staffs in the Frontier (4.04 team ERA as of Saturday morning, fourth-lowest in the league), is going to be the group that carries the Boomers throughout the summer and into what they hope to be another deep postseason run. 

Just how far Schaumburg gets once they arrive there, however, is going to depend on if, and when, consistent run support comes. 

Lineup pillars from 2022 in Mike Hart and Braxton Davidson, who had 19 and 18 home runs, respectively, as the team’s only two players with double-digit long bombs, both have moved elsewhere, leaving behind a major gap in power and production.

Schaumburg hasn’t seemed to figure out how to fill that quite yet, with a league-low four homers on the year (by comparison, the New Jersey Jackals have a league-high 26). 

Announcing our 2023 Coaching Staff!

Read more on our website: https://t.co/j4jGlFpvxh#boomercountry pic.twitter.com/FqWhxrppiQ

— Schaumburg Boomers (@boomersbaseball) March 16, 2023

If Bennett can help take the Boomers back to the playoffs, watch out, because arguably no one else in the league is better at steering the ship when the season is on the line.

Across Schaumburg’s five postseason appearances, it has qualified for the Championship Series every time and won it four times. 

If tradition holds, and the Boomers do indeed peak late, odds are they’ll be just fine when September rolls around, but it also is reasonable to be a bit concerned in wondering if the offense is going to get any better – you can’t win games if you don’t score, after all.