Kyle Peter

Mixing a little pleasure with a lot of work.

That's the attitude West Michigan Whitecaps outfielder Kyle Peter took with him to the Hawaii Winter Baseball League, where he spent seven weeks working on his skills in near-perfect weather conditions.

Peter and his West Oahu CaneFires teammates lost in the championship game a week ago, but the overall experience proved worthwhile for the Detroit Tigers prospect. Peter finished second in the league in hitting (.370) and stolen bases (11), and third in hits (34) and runs scored (20).

Roger Mason

The Traverse City Beach Bums, of the Independent Frontier League, didn't have to look very far to find their new pitching coach.

Roger Mason, 51, still resides in his hometown of Bellaire, about 40 miles northeast of Traverse City.

The nine-year major league pitcher who played for five different teams -- the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets -- will be the Beach Bums' pitching coach in 2009, his first job at the pro level.

COMSTOCK PARK -- OK, let me see if I can't make a little dollars and sense out of John Wheeler's "dream."

Wheeler, a chief executive for Rockford Construction, threw out the idea of building a ballpark in downtown Grand Rapids during his speech at the University of Michigan/Urban Land Institute Forum last week and having the West Michigan Whitecaps move from Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park and play their home games within the Grand Rapids city limits.

COMSTOCK PARK -- Just like an aspiring Class A professional baseball player hoping to move up in the minor league system and eventually to the major leagues, West Michigan Whitecaps play-by-play radio announcer Dave Skoczen inspires to do the same.

That's why after eight seasons announcing at the Single-A level, the past four with the Whitecaps, Skoczen, 30, has decided to leave the organization to pursue his dreams.

Friday will be Skoczen's last day as a member of the Whitecaps' organization. He plans to pack-up his family (wife and two boys, 3 and 1) and head to California in the coming days.

COMSTOCK PARK -- The West Michigan Whitecaps' season came to a close earlier this month after a 3-2 loss to the South Bend Silver Hawks in the first round of the Midwest League playoffs.

And while many of the Whitecaps will return home for the offseason, some are attending an instructional camp in Lakeland, Fla., that began Tuesday.

West Michigan manager Joe DePastino announced that seven players --four pitchers and three field players -- will be back on the field for nearly a month.

Press File PhotoJon Kibler led the Midwest League in wins and ERA and helped anchor a strong West Michigan rotation.

COMSTOCK PARK -- The 2008 Midwest League season officially came to an end last week when league president George Spelius declared the Burlington Bees champions after two games of their best-of-five series with the South Bend Silver Hawks.

The Bees won Games 1 and 2 by scores of 6-0 and 12-0, respectively. Game 3 was rained out two days straight, and, with various instructional and fall leagues approaching and no foreseeable end to the rain, Spelius felt it was in the best interest to declare the Bees the champions.

The West Michigan Whitecaps fell short of a MWL threepeat, but it still was a successful season for a number of players and first-year manager Joe DePastino.

Casper Wells

Casper Wells likes his position within the Detroit Tigers' organization.

After jumping past high Class A Lakeland after playing the first three months of the year at West Michigan, Wells thinks he's in a position to play at Toledo next season.

There's little doubt that Wells' outstanding season caught the attention of the Tigers.

COMSTOCK PARK -- Empty cardboard boxes prepared to be filled were scattered around the clubhouse, uniforms were tossed together in a giant pile and lockers were being emptied out.

It's a common scene once a season ends, but not one that the West Michigan Whitecaps had hoped for just yet.

The Whitecaps were hoping to extend their postseason, but instead saw it come to a close with a 3-2 loss to South Bend on Saturday night in Game 3 of their first-round Midwest League playoff series.

COMSTOCK PARK -- The last time the Midwest League welcomed two new minor-league teams to its low Class A league was 1988.

Those two teams were the Rockford (Ill.) Expos and the South Bend (Ind.) White Sox.

In 2010, the MWL will expand to a league-record 16 teams with the addition of the Lake County (Eastlake, Ohio) Captains and a franchise from Bowling Green, Ky., that has yet to be named.

Thad Weber

COMSTOCK PARK -- Pitcher Thad Weber has pitched in the NCAA Regionals for the University of Nebraska and in front 20,000 fans at Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The big-game experience he gained in those situations will be what Weber will rely on tonight in Game 2 of the Midwest League Eastern Division playoffs at Fifth Third Ballpark between the West Michigan Whitecaps and the South Bend Silver Hawks.

West Michigan lost Game 1, 5-3, on Wednesday night and now faces elimination.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- West Michigan Whitecaps infielder Ronnie Bourquin was suspended by the Detroit Tigers for violating team rules Wednesday and didn't make the trip to South Bend for Game 1 of the Midwest League Playoffs against the Silver Hawks.

The switch-hitting Bourquin, who played in 118 games and batted .235, played mainly at first and third base this season. He was a second-round draft pick of the Tigers in 2006 out of Ohio State, where he was the Big Ten Player of the Year.

This is Bourquin's first season in West Michigan after playing in Oneonta in '06 and splitting time in Oneonta and Lakeland in '07.

COMSTOCK PARK -- It's a match made in minor league baseball heaven.

The Detroit Tigers know it. And so do the West Michigan Whitecaps, the Tigers' low Class A affiliate in the Midwest League since 1997.

Their player development contract was set to expire in 2010, but the Tigers decided to extend the relationship for another four seasons Tuesday, through the 2014 season.

Jon Kibler

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Jon Kibler was the starting pitcher for the Oneonta Tigers, the Detroit Tigers' rookie team, in Game 1 of the New York-Penn League playoffs last season.

For the former Michigan State standout, it was his first season as a professional and arguably the biggest game of his career. He won.

The ball has been handed to the left-hander from Baltimore, Md., again. He'll be on the mound tonight in Game 1 of the Midwest League playoffs when the West Michigan Whitecaps face the South Bend Silver Hawks in a best-of-three first-round series.

Jordan Newton

• Name: Jordan Newton

• Position: Catcher/outfielder

• Age: 23

• How acquired: Selected by the Tigers in the sixth round of the 2006 draft

• Last week: Newton reached a personal best Sunday when he extended his hitting streak to a career-high 11 games with a 2-for-4 effort in a 5-4 extra-inning win over Dayton. He also had two runs, two RBIs and produced the game-winning sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th inning.

COMSTOCK PARK -- The news is in on West Michigan Whitecaps pitcher Jon Kibler and it's good.

There was no structural damage in Kibler's left shoulder that he experienced tightness in during his last start (Aug. 23), but he will not pitch the rest of the Midwest League regular season, which West Michigan will wrap up with four games at Dayton.