In the wine country of Sonoma County the Healdsburg Prune Packers, Humboldt Crabs, Lincoln Potters, Medford Rogues, Solano Mudcats and West Coast Kings formed the Pacific Empire League, a summer wood-bat baseball league for college players.
Two Oregon pitchers star for the Packers, Blake Crawford of West Linn, Oregon and Tanner Bradley of Cotati, California.
Both were freshmen with the Ducks last season. Bradley played in five games while Crawford redshirted. In five innings Bradley struck out six and did not allow a run, a hit or a walk, including two scoreless innings against Utah Valley at the Eugene Regional in the NCAA Tournament.
With Jason Reitz and Grayson Grinsell both drafted by the major leagues, the two should be an essential part of the staff at UO in 2026. With the Prune Packers, they've found their rhythm in the game.
These two @OregonBaseball Ducks have been a huge reason for the success of the #1 ranked Healdsburg Prune Packers. Tanner Bradley and Blake Crawford @blakec2706 have been a problem for hitters on the summer circuit.
— Healdsburg Packers (@PrunePackers) July 19, 2025
Data supplied by @TrackManBB, the official ball and tracking… pic.twitter.com/sKNb34lyNX
Note the stats. Crawford, the left hander, has struck out 21 in 12.2 innings, with opponents batting .025 against him. Bradley boasts a 4-0 record and 25 strikeouts in 21 innings.
Healdsburg won the league in 2024 and they're in first place with two weeks to go in the 2025 regular season, then the championship series at the end of the month. Their manager is Joey Gomes, a former pro baseball player who reached AA, the brother of Jonny Gomes, who hit 162 home runs in big leagues with the Devil Rays, Reds and Red Sox.
For the college stars looking to develop their games and get scouted, it's an intense baseball summer. Joey Gomes told Gus Morris of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, “That’s what we are in Healdsburg, We play every day, we use wood bats, we get to the field at 2 p.m. for 6 p.m. games, we hit three times a day."
"The guys love the game, they grind it out with us, and when you have a good foundation, a good culture, the team kind of creates its own identity."
“I’d say since I took over in 2014 that tough and talented has been the culture.”
The team started the season with a 8-game winning streak before losing a game to the Humboldt Crabs, then dropped another 3-2 to the Medford Rogues. After that they reeled off 10 straight wins, a game and a half ahead of the Crabs at 22-2 by July 9.
At Rec Park the fans sit in rustic shaded bleachers. It's a bit out of time, the smack of the ball into the catcher's mitt and the smells of Guy Fieri barbecue wafting through the stands.
In "Shoeless Joe," the novel that inspired the movie "Field of Dreams," W.P. Kinsella wrote, “I don't have to tell you that the one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. But baseball has marked time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers.”
Fans who have lost the flavor of the game or the magic of it can find it in Healdsburg, as Crawford and Bradley have.