Winnipesaukee Muskrats
NECBL team in Laconia, New Hampshire, from 2010 to 2022.
The Winnipesaukee Muskrats were a collegiate summer baseball team based in Laconia, New Hampshire, and a member of the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL), a wood bat league in the northeastern United States. The team played its home games at Robbie Mills Field. Originally founded as the Manchester Silkworms in 2000, the franchise relocated to Laconia for the 2010 season and rebranded as the Winnipesaukee Muskrats in 2016, before folding after the 2022 season.
Quick Facts
- League
- NECBL
- Division
- Northern Division
- Location
- Laconia, New Hampshire (2010–2022); Manchester, Connecticut (2000–2009)
- Stadium
- Robbie Mills Field (2010–2022)
- Founded
- 2000
- Series
- Post-Season Division
- Former names
- Laconia Muskrats (2010–2016); Manchester Silkworms (2000–2009)
- Former leagues
- NECBL
- Southern Division (2004–2008)
- Western Division (2002)
- American Division (2001)
Facts from the source article.
History
The franchise that would become the Winnipesaukee Muskrats started in 2000 as the Manchester Silkworms, the third NECBL team based in Connecticut. Between 2004 and 2008, the Silkworms made the playoffs five years in a row. In 2004, they hosted the league’s All-Star Game and posted a franchise-best 24–17 record. After the 2009 season, owner Ed Slegeski sold the team to a group led by Jonathan and Noah Crane. A Name-the-Team contest picked the Muskrats moniker. In February 2012, the Laconia Parks and Recreation Commission allowed alcohol sales in a separate pavilion beyond left field at Robbie Mills Field. That April, the club announced a manual scoreboard built at the left-field fence, modeled after Fenway Park’s Green Monster; it stood 17 feet tall and 88 feet long, constructed during the 2012 season. Following the 2015 season, new general manager Kristian Svindland changed the team’s name from Laconia to Winnipesaukee, after the area’s “Big Lake,” to broaden regional appeal. The Muskrats folded after the 2022 season when the league’s governing board rejected their plan to house players.
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