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Cape Cod Baseball League

Collegiate summer baseball league From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cape Cod Baseball League
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The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousand former players who have gone on to play in the major leagues.

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History

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Hall of Famer Pie Traynor played for Falmouth in 1919
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Danny MacFayden (Osterville 1924, Falmouth 1925) played for the Boston Red Sox from 1926 to 1932
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New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge played for Brewster in 2012

Pre-modern era

Origins

As early as the 1860s, baseball teams representing various Cape Cod towns and villages were competing against one another. The earliest newspaper account is of an 1867 game in Sandwich between the hometown "Nichols Club" and the visiting Cummaquid team. Though not formalized as a league, the games provided entertainment for residents and summer visitors.[1][2]

In 1885, a Fourth of July baseball game was held matching teams from Barnstable and Sandwich.[3] According to contemporary accounts, the 1885 contest may have been at least the twelfth such annual game.[4] By the late 19th century, an annual championship baseball tournament was being held each fall at the Barnstable County Fair, an event that continued well into the 20th century, with teams representing towns from Cape Cod and the larger region.

In 1921, the Barnstable County Agricultural Society determined to limit the fair's annual baseball championship to teams from Cape Cod. Falmouth won the championship in 1921,[5][6] and Osterville in 1922.[7] Interest in baseball was growing, as was a movement to create a formal league of Cape Cod teams.

The early Cape League era (1923–1939)

The "Cape Cod Baseball League" was formed in 1923, consisting of four teams: Falmouth, Osterville, Hyannis, and Chatham.[8][9] Teams were made up of players from local colleges and prep schools, along with some semi-pro players and other locals. One notable player during this period was North Truro native Danny "Deacon" MacFayden, who went on to play for seventeen years in the major leagues.[10][11]

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the composition of the league varied from season to season. Towns did not opt to field teams in every season, and teams from other towns such as Bourne, Harwich, Orleans, Provincetown, and Wareham joined the league. Teams were not limited to league play, and often played teams from towns and cities in the larger region, as in 1929 when Falmouth played an exhibition game against the major league Boston Braves.[12][13][14]

The league enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the 1930s, and even engendered competition in the form of the Barnstable County Twilight League and the Lower Cape Twilight League. However, as the cumulative effects of the Great Depression made it increasingly more difficult to secure funding for teams, the Cape League disbanded in 1940.

The Upper and Lower Cape League era (1946–1962)

With young men returning home after World War II, the Cape League was revived in 1946. The league now excluded paid professional or semi-pro players, and for a while attempted to limit players to those who were Cape Cod residents. The league was split into Upper Cape and Lower Cape divisions, and in addition to many of the town teams from the "old" Cape League, new teams now joined such as those representing the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Otis Air Force Base, and the Cape Verdean Club of Harwich among others.

Modern era (1963–present)

In 1963, the Cape Cod Baseball League was reorganized and became officially sanctioned by the NCAA. The league would no longer be limited to Cape Cod residents, but would recruit college players and coaches from an increasingly wide radius.

In 1985, the league moved away from the use of aluminum bats, and became the only collegiate summer league in the nation at that time to use wooden bats.[15] This transition began a period of significant growth in the league's popularity and prestige among MLB scouts, as well as among college players and coaches. This popularity has translated into over one thousand former players who have gone on to major league playing careers, including multiple members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

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Structure and season

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A night game at Doran Park, home of the Bourne Braves

The CCBL regular season runs from mid-June through mid-August.[16] Teams are geographically divided into the East Division and West Division. Each division consists of five teams which each play 44 regular season games, 6 games against each team from within their division, and 4 games against each team from the other division.

During the latter half of the regular season, an all-star game is contested between the all stars from the East and West divisions, and features a pre-game home run hitting contest. The CCBL All-Star Game was played at Fenway Park from 2009 to 2011, but is normally played at one of the CCBL home fields.

Following the regular season, the top four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs, which is an elimination tournament consisting of three rounds of best of three series to determine the league champion and winner of the Arnold Mycock trophy.

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Teams

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Current teams

Cape Cod Baseball League teams (West Division teams in red, East Division teams in blue)

Origin of team nicknames

Prior to 2009, six of the ten teams in the CCBL shared their team nickname with a team in Major League Baseball (MLB). However, in late 2008 MLB announced that it would enforce its trademarks, and required those CCBL teams to either change their nicknames or buy their uniforms and merchandise only through MLB-licensed vendors.

Three of the teams eventually changed their nicknames. In 2009, the Chatham Athletics became the Anglers, and the Orleans Cardinals became the Firebirds.[17] The following season, the Hyannis Mets became the Harbor Hawks.[18]

The Bourne Braves and Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox, teams who share nicknames with Boston's two historic professional baseball franchises, chose to keep their nicknames and use MLB licensees for their merchandise.

MLB could not enforce the "Mariners" trademark against the Harwich Mariners because the use of the nickname by Harwich predated the entry of the Seattle Mariners into MLB as an expansion team in 1977.

The four teams whose nicknames were not in conflict with MLB have locally themed names such as the nautical monikers of the Falmouth Commodores and Brewster Whitecaps. The Cotuit Kettleers nickname recalls a legendary local Native American land transaction whose terms of sale involved the exchange of a brass kettle.[19] The Wareham Gatemen are the only team that does not play its home games over the bridge, as the town of Wareham sits on the edge of the mainland, at the "gateway" to Cape Cod. Wareham was considered Cape Cod prior to the construction of the Cape Cod Canal.

Franchise timelines

Origins

Below is a partial list of Cape Cod baseball teams from the 1860s until the formation of the Cape League in 1923.

  • Barnstable Cummaquids
  • Barnstable Osceolas
  • Barnstable Village
  • Chatham
  • Falmouth Cottage Club
  • Harwich
  • Hyannis
  • Orleans Pants Factory
  • Osterville
  • Sandwich Athletics
  • Sandwich Nichols Club
  • West Barnstable Mastetuketts
  • West Falmouth
  • Yarmouth Mattakeesetts


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Blondy Ryan and Red Rolfe played for Orleans during the Early Cape League era. Both went on to enjoy long major league careers. Ryan was starting shortstop for the 1933 World Series champion New York Giants, and Rolfe was starting third basemen for five New York Yankees World Series championship teams.

Early Cape League era (1923–1939)

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Upper and Lower Cape League era (1946–1962)

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A team from Otis AFB played in the Cape League from the 1940s to the 1960s. View of an inspection at Otis Field in August, 1944.
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Keith Field, in the shadow of the Sagamore Bridge, was home of the Sagamore Clouters from the 1940s to the 1960s.
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Beginnings of the modern era (1963–1987)

From 1963 to 1969, the newly reorganized league maintained the Upper Cape/Lower Cape divisional structure, with the championship series played by the winners of each division. Beginning in 1970, the divisional structure gave way to a single combined league, with the top four teams in the league advancing to the playoffs. This combined league structure continued through 1987.

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Present Day

In 1988, the Bourne Braves and the Brewster Whitecaps joined the CCBL as expansion teams and the resulting ten-team league was split into East and West divisions. Since 1988, there have been no changes to the league's franchise composition or divisional alignments.

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League championships

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Frank "Shanty" Hogan won a CCBL championship with Osterville in 1924 and went on to a 13-year MLB career with the Boston Braves, New York Giants and Washington Senators.
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Frank Skaff was an all-league outfielder for Harwich's 1933 title club, and went on to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers
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* During the 1923–1939 era, postseason playoffs were a rarity. In most years, the regular season pennant winner was simply crowned as the league champion.
However, there were four years in which the league split its regular season and crowned separate champions for the first and second halves. In two of those
seasons (1936 and 1939), a single team won both halves and was declared overall champion. In the other two split seasons (1933 and 1935), a postseason
playoff series was contested between the two half-season champions to determine the overall champion.

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CCBL Hall of Famer Lou Lamoriello came up short in back-to-back CCBL title series as a player with Harwich and Orleans in 1962 and 1963, but won a league title in 1965 as manager of Sagamore.
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CCBL Hall of Famer Jeff Reardon pitched for the 1974 and 1975 champion Cotuit Kettleers.
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Charles Nagy was playoff MVP of Harwich's 1987 championship season.
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Barry Zito pitched for the 1997 CCBL champion Wareham Gatemen
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Emmanuel Burriss won playoff co-MVP in Orleans' 2005 championship season
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Buster Posey played shortstop and catcher for the 2006 & 2007 back-to-back CCBL champion Y-D Red Sox
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DJ LeMahieu played on Harwich's 2008 CCBL championship team
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Bradley Zimmer was playoff MVP of Cotuit's 2013 championship season
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The Cotuit Kettleers' record of 15 titles in the modern era and 17 overall is unmatched among CCBL franchises.
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Skipper Mike Roberts led Cotuit to CCBL titles in 2010, 2013 and 2019
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CCBL Hall of Famer Scott Pickler has led Y-D to six league titles
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CCBL Hall of Famer George Greer skippered Cotuit to three league titles in the 1980s
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Key
CCBL Hall of Fame Inductee
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All-Star Game

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Baseball Hall of Famers Phil Rizzuto, Roy Campanella, and Whitey Ford were on hand at the 1961 CCBL All-Star Game.

The first CCBL All-Star Game took place in 1946, as a squad of Cape League stars battled a collection of Boston Red Sox tryout players. Throughout the Upper and Lower Cape League era (1946–1962), the two divisions routinely featured both intra-divisional all-star contests, as well as an annual inter-divisional CCBL All-Star Game. From 1957 to 1961, the CCBL All-Star Game was sponsored by P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company. Ballantine was a major advertising sponsor of the New York Yankees, and arranged for appearances at the CCBL festivities by Yankee alumni including Phil Rizzuto, Elston Howard, Whitey Ford, Moose Skowron, Bill Stafford, Eddie Lopat, and Mel Allen, as well as Brooklyn Dodgers great Roy Campanella.

As the league's modern era began, the All-Star Game continued to be contested between the CCBL's Upper Cape (western) and Lower Cape (eastern) divisions from 1963 to 1969. In 1963, an additional All-Star Game was played by a team from the CCBL against a team from the southeastern Massachusetts-based Cranberry League. The game was played at Keith Field in Sagamore, and the CCBL came out on top, 15–2.

From 1970 to 1987, a team of stars from the CCBL played an annual interleague All-Star Game against stars from the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League (ACBL). The games were typically played at major league stadiums including Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium in New York, and Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium.

Since 1988, the All-Star Game has been contested between stars representing the CCBL's East and West divisions, and has also featured a pre-game home run hitting contest. The event is normally held at one of the CCBL home fields, though it returned to Fenway Park for a three-year stretch from 2009 to 2011.

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Annual award winners

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CCBL Hall of Famer and 1976 league MVP Nat "Buck" Showalter won the league batting title with a .434 average
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CCBL Hall of Famer Steve Balboni, 1977 league MVP and Outstanding Pro Prospect
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CCBL Hall of Famer Walt Terrell was the league's Outstanding Pitcher in 1979
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Steve Lombardozzi, 1980 Sportsmanship Award winner
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CCBL Hall of Famer Joey Cora was league MVP in 1984
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CCBL Hall of Famer Robin Ventura, 1987 Outstanding Pro Prospect Award winner
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CCBL Hall of Famer Darin Erstad, 1994 league MVP
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CCBL Hall of Famer Carlos Peña, 1997 league MVP and Sportsmanship Award winner
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CCBL Hall of Famer Matt Wieters, 2006 Outstanding Pro Prospect Award winner
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CCBL Hall of Famer Kolten Wong was league MVP in 2010
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Stephen Piscotty was CCBL batting champ in 2011

The league annually presents several individual awards,[193][194] including:

  • The Pat Sorenti MVP Award
  • The Robert A. McNeece Outstanding Pro Prospect Award
  • The BFC Whitehouse Outstanding Pitcher Award
  • The Russ Ford Outstanding Relief Pitcher Award
  • The Daniel J. Silva Sportsmanship Award
  • The Manny Robello 10th Player Award
  • The John J. Claffey Outstanding New England Player Award
  • The Thurman Munson Award for Batting Champion
More information Year, MVP ...
Key
CCBL Hall of Fame Inductee
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Statistical records

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Individual season records below are for a 42-game regular season from 1963 to 1987 and a 44-game regular season from 1988–present.
Aluminum bats were used from 1975 through 1984.

Individual batting, season (1963–present)

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CCBL Hall of Famer Tim Teufel hit 16 home runs and had 52 RBI for Cotuit in 1979.
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CCBL Hall of Famer Mickey Morandini swiped 43 bases for Y-D in 1987.
More information Batting Average (AVG), AVG ...
More information Home Runs (HR), HR ...
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More information Stolen Bases (SB), SB ...

Individual pitching, season (1963–present)

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CCBL Hall of Famer Paul Mitchell set a league record with 126 strikeouts for Falmouth in 1969.
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CCBL Hall of Famer Ryan Speier saved 16 games for Bourne in 2001.
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More information Strikeouts (SO), SO ...
More information Earned Run Average (ERA), ERA ...
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More information Innings Pitched (IP), IP ...
More information Saves (SV), SV ...
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Presidents and commissioners

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Longtime Springfield College head coach Archie Allen was CCBL Commissioner in 1983. He is shown here coaching the Dutch national team in the 1964 European Baseball Championship.
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Key
CCBL Hall of Fame Inductee
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Hall of Fame and Museum

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CCBL Hall of Famer Thurman Munson
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CCBL Hall of Famer Peter Gammons
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CCBL Hall of Famer Kyle Schwarber

The CCBL Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame honoring past players, coaches, and others who have made outstanding contributions to the CCBL.[240] Since its inaugural class in 2000, the Hall of Fame has held annual inductions of new members, enshrining over 170 members to date.

Originally opened to the public in 2003 at the Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich,[241] the Hall of Fame and Museum moved in 2008 to the lower level of the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where it remained until 2017.[242] The league anticipates a 2024 reopening of the Hall of Fame at a permanent location in South Yarmouth.[243]

Inductees (by year):

Alumni in the National Baseball Hall of Fame

The following former CCBL players have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

In addition to the player inductees below, Cooperstown also honored longtime CCBL president Judy Walden Scarafile in 2010 by featuring her in the museum's Diamond Dreams exhibit, which highlights stories of pioneering women in baseball.[259][260][261]

More information Player, CCBL Team ...
Key
CCBL Hall of Fame Inductee

See also

References

Further reading

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