Angels' Wood contest winner

ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- Brandon Wood, a 20-year-old shortstop in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, is the winner of the Minor League Baseball Round-Tripper Contest for 2005. He led all Minor League players with 43 home runs, five more than runner-up Joe Koshansky of the Colorado Rockies organization.

Wood will be honored at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Dallas in December, where he will receive the Joe Bauman Trophy and a check for $8,600 ($200 for each home run). Bauman set the all-time Minor League Baseball record when he hit 72 homers for Roswell, NM, in 1954.

Wood played for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes of the California League, where he batted .321 with 115 runs-batted-in. He finished the year with the Salt Lake Stingers of the Pacific Coast League, hitting .316 in four games with no homers. This was his third pro season. Brandon was the 23rd overall selection in the first round of the 2003 draft out of Horizon High School in Scottsdale, AZ.

Koshansky, 23, hit 36 of his home runs to win the South Atlantic League title with the Asheville Tourists and added two more after a late-season promotion to the Tulsa Drillers of the Texas League. This was his second pro season after being drafted in the sixth round in 2004 out of the University of Virginia.

While Wood ran away with Class A honors, there were tight races to decide the leaders at other classification levels, who will each receive a check for $500. Luke Scott of Round Rock was the Triple-A winner with 31, one more than John-Ford Griffin, Syracuse; Aaron Guiel, Omaha; Todd Linden, Fresno; and Scott McClain, Iowa. Shelly Duncan of Trenton was the Double-A winner with 34, three up on Mike Napoli of Arkansas. Eric Campbell of Danville led the Short-A/Rookie division with 18, two ahead of Jacob Butler, who had a combined 16 for Pulaski and Auburn.