Former Lewis-Clark State College catcher Steve Decker (left) managed the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes to their second straight Northwest League title in such a dominant fashion that the club earned the Team of the Year Award from MinorLeagueBaseball.com. 

Under Decker, Salem-Keizer posted a 57-19 record for a .750 winning percentage, the best winning percentage of any minor league team this summer. The team also had the best minor league winning percentage in 2006. The San Francisco Giants Rookie League team wasn’t expected to be that good this season, but wound up becoming the first NWL team in more than a decade to repeat as champions.

"We didn't have a lot of high draft picks, we didn't have a single guy on the top 20 prospect list," Decker told MILB.com in an interview.  "What we had was a bunch of overachievers who came to prove a point."

According to the story posted on the MILB.com’s Web site, “All things being equal, you'll normally see a full-season squad named MILB.com's Team of the Year -- a team that played the full gamut of 140-plus games, that dominated from April to September. But Salem-Keizer's numbers across the board tipped the scales so much in its favor that, short-season designation notwithstanding, the Volcanoes are our Minor League Team of the Year. “

Salem-Keizer ran away with its NWL’s West Division title, winning by 19½ games. The Volcanoes then defeated Tri-Cities 3-1 in a best-of-5 series to capture the league championship.

Salem-Keizer led the league in hitting by 17 points with a .289 average, and in earned run average by more than half a run at 3.40. The team also led the league in runs, hits, homers and fewest strikeouts and most shutouts recorded.

They were so dominant that no other entry in the eight-team league finished above .500. Of the other seven, four would have finished at .500 or better if you took away their games against Salem-Keizer. That includes Boise, which, though tied for the next-best record in the league, was 0-10 against the Volcanoes.

Decker had taken the 2006 club to the title with a 55-21 record and a roster dotted with names like Tim Lincecum and Emmanuel Burriss, the Giants' two first-round picks that spring.

This year was expected to be a different story for Decker, who was named co-Manager of the Year in the Northwest League.

Decker told MILB.com, "It was a Cinderella team that wasn't really supposed to win, just a bunch of guys who weren't supposed to be there. We had the dirtiest uniforms in the league. I knew the team was special by how hard we worked at 2:30 in the afternoon. That's when you really see the work ethic and the commitment and the consistency to come and work.  We weren't fast. We didn't have a lot of power. We only had one or two guys who threw over 90 mph."

Decker has been named manager of the year twice in three seasons.