THE CAPE LEAGUE STORY
With origins dating back to the Civil War, the Cape Cod Baseball League celebrates its 130th season in 2014 and continues to provide fans with competitive baseball entertainment, where the country’s top college players display multi-dimensional skills in their purest form.
Seasonal highlights include the invitational CCBL Tryout in Wareham, opening day on June 11, Cape League All-Star Game at Bourne’s Doran Park and a 44-game regular season schedule with quarter, semi and championship, two-out-of-three game playoff series and the CCBL Hall of Fame exhibit at JFK Hyannis Museum.
After being populated mostly by GI’s returning from World War I in 1919 and WW II in the late 1940’s, the CCBL continued to be populated by local and regional players until 1963, when it became officially sanctioned by the NCAA.
Following a decade (1974-84) using aluminum bats, the Cape League became the first collegiate summer league to return to wood in 1985 and became even more popular with major league scouts, fans, college players and coaches.
With over 1,000 alumni performing at all levels of professional baseball in 2013, a record 255 former Cape Leaguers populated major league rosters, including Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum (Harwich ’05), NL MVP’s Ryan Braun (Brewster ’05) and Buster Posey (Y-D ’07, ’08), fleet centerfielder Jacoby Ellsbury (Falmouth ’04), All-Star closer Brian Wilson (Hyannis, 2002), slugging infielders Mark Texeira (Orleans ’99) and Evan Longoria (Chatham ’05) and All-Star catcher Matt Wieters (Orleans ’06), along with major league managers Buck Showalter (Hyannis ‘76), John Farrell (Hyannis ’82), Joe Giardi (Cotuit '84), Robin Ventura (Hyannis ’87) and Mike Matheny (Cotuit ’90).
The list of Cape League all time alumni in MLB totals more than 1,030 names, including Baseball Hall of Famers Harold “Pie” Traynor (Falmouth ’19), Carlton Fisk (Orleans ’66) and 2014 inductee Frank Thomas (Orleans ’88), former New York Yankee legends Robert “Red” Rolfe (Orleans ’30) and Thurman Munson (Chatham ’67), Cy Young Award winners Steve Stone (Chatham ’68), Mike Flanagan (Falmouth ’72) and Barry Zito (Wareham ’97 & ’98), Firemen-of-the-Year Wayne Granger (Sagamore ’62), Jeff Reardon (Cotuit ’74-76) and Billy Wagner (Brewster ’92), AL batting champion Nomar Garciaparra (Orleans ’93), World Series MVP Mike Lowell (Chatham, ‘94), Major League scout Lennie Merullo (Barnstable ’35), slugging first basemen Jeff Bagwell (Chatham ’87-’88) and Mo Vaughn (Wareham ’88) and Craig Biggio (Y-D ’86), only Cape Leaguer to amass over 3,000 hits in the major leagues.
The Cape League is recognized as the best amateur summer leagues in the country by college coaches, as well as professional baseball scouts. Players from around the USA and all college divisions are recruited to play in the ten-team league.
Teams are located in Bourne, Brewster, Chatham, Cotuit, Falmouth, Harwich, Hyannis, Orleans, Wareham, and Yarmouth-Dennis. The CCBL relies heavily on community support.
From housing and jobs for the players, to volunteer work within the league itself, the league could not enjoy its growing success without a total team effort. Hard work by each franchise pays-off as the ultimate reward is to see stars of tomorrow take the field on Cape Cod today.
