There are three kinds of baseball games. You have the pro game, with the millionaires and the urban settings. You have Little League style, pretty much anywhere with grass. You also have high-level amateur ball.
Little League is good if one of your kids is in the game or if Walter Matthau is the coach. Major League ball is good if you don't mind spending $300 to watch a game with your kids. Otherwise, you can keep that ish.
I prefer driving 3 minutes across a small town (update to 175 minutes if the game is on a summer Friday night, as I live in Bourne) and still watching high-level ball. I have this option on the table because Cape Cod hosts the world famous Cape Cod Baseball League.
You can catch a game on Cape Cod pretty much every night, from Wareham to Orleans. The games are played in a series of charming parks scattered around a coastal resort region.
Admission is free, the hot dogs are cheap and the kids have a great time. The league is supported via donations, vendor sales and fundraising. The players live with locals, and usually take jobs in the community. Jeff Bagwell may have painted your house, and Albert Belle may have mowed your lawn.
You may even see a future great player. Jeff Bagwell, "The Big Hurt" Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, crazy ol' Albert Belle, Chuck Knoblauch, Craig Biggio, Aaron friggin' Boone, Jacoby Ellsbury, Scott Erickson, John Farrell, Carlton Fisk, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, Tim Lincecum, Evan Longoria, Tino Martinez, Mike Lowell, Thurman Munson, Pie Traynor (the first Cape League guy to make it to the MLB Hall Of Fame), Jeff Reardon, Mo Vaughn and both Mel and Todd Stottlemyer have played in the Cape Cod Baseball League. Freddie Prinze-Gellar also played here, in Summer Catch.
You get to see the players before they get rich/arrogant and start schlepping Cameron Diaz. Most and maybe all players on the teams are college kids who stay at homes in the community of whatever team they play for. Carlton Fisk, who hit the iconic 1975 home run in the World Series, slummed it on someone's couch in Orleans for a summer in 1966.
I'd host one of the kids, but they're going to have to pass a drug test at some point. Nomar Garciaparra, who earned $100 million dollars in his career and married Mia Hamm, would have failed a drug test and would be washing dishes at the Trowbridge Tavern if he stayed with me instead of whoever he lived with as a relative unknown in 1993.
Divisional Breakdown, which I cut-n-pasted from Wikipedia.
Division Team Town/ Village Home Field Most Recent Championship
West
Bourne Braves Bourne Doran Park (at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School) 2009
Cotuit Kettleers Cotuit Lowell Park 2013
Falmouth Commodores Falmouth Guv Fuller Field 1980
Hyannis Harbor Hawks Hyannis McKeon Park (PJP II High School) 1991
Wareham Gatemen Wareham Clem Spillane Field (Wareham High School) 2012
East
Brewster Whitecaps Brewster Stony Brook Field 2000
Chatham Anglers Chatham Veteran's Field 1998
Harwich Mariners Harwich Whitehouse Field (Monomoy High School) 2011
Orleans Firebirds Orleans Eldredge Park (Nauset Middle School) 2005
Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox Yarmouth Red Wilson Field (D-Y High School) 2015
Some Cape League Trivia and Associated Tangents
- The Cape Cod Baseball League was founded in 1885. 2016 is season #131.
- For many years, military personnel made up much of the talent on any given team.
- In 1963, the NCAA got involved, and it was all college players from then on.
- Former teams include "Orleans Pants Factory," "Cottage Club," "Barnstable Townies," "Sagamore Clouters," "Sandwich Athletics," "North Truro Blue Sox," "Bourne Canalmen," and "Provincetown Longpointers."
- The 2016 season runs from June 10th through August 3rd. The final game of the playoffs is tentatively scheduled for August 13th.
- The Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox are rolling on back-to-back Cape League championships.
- Falmouth has 7 championships. Bourne has 1. Orleans has 12. Sagamore, God rest their soul, won 5. Y-D has won 9, 2 as simply Yarmouth. Chatham has won 5. Wareham has won 7. Hyannis has won 3. Harwich has won 4. Brewster has won 1. Cotuit has won the most titles, bagging 16.
- Only two teams (the Boune Braves and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox) still share names with major league teams. Everyone else made up their own name. Bourne and Y-D have to pay money to MLB for use of the team names.
- The Braves and the Red Sox are the two names associated with Boston's current or former big league teams.
- If Bourne and Y-D have to rename their teams, I favor "Bourne Buzzards" and "Y-D Because" as replacement names.
- Names abandoned after MLB started charging: Hyannis Mets, Chatham A's, and Orleans Cardinals.
- "Y-D" = "Yarmouth-Dennis." This is the opposite of what they do with the regional high school they share, which is known as "Dennis-Yarmouth" and/or "D-Y." This column is unaware if some sort of balancing arrangement was met.
- The Harwich Mariners were using "Mariners" before the Seattle Mariners were, so they don't have to pay. I don't know why Seattle isn't sending a fat check to Harwich, but so it goes...
- One of the better areas of side-entertainment at Cape League games is watching the pretty girls from each town try to score a potential-millionaire boyfriend. My other favorite things to people-watch there are the old people who have been to every game for 30 years and nag at the umpire with his first name, i.e. "Come on, Jimmy, you screw us every year!"
- This column personally favors a 16 team league with a August Apoplexy tournament to determine a champion. Doing so would bring about the need for 6 more teams.
- Those 6 teams would be gained by inviting the Plymouth Pilgrims, the Brockton Rox, the New Bedford Bay Sox, the Martha's Vineyard Sharks, the Newport Gulls and the North Shore (Lynn) Navigators from other local collegiate leagues. They'd be visiting teams only... the Cape League tournament doesn't leave Cape Cod, landlubber.
- The Cape League should use nothing but Barnstable Bat Company bats, IMHO.
Here's this weekend's schedule:
Friday, June 10th
ORL @ BRE
5:00 PM
WAR @ YD
5:00 PM
HYA @ BOU
6:00 PM
COT @ HAR
6:30 PM
FAL @ CHA
7:00 PM
Saturday June 11th
BRE @ COT
5:00 PM
FAL @ YD
5:00 PM
HYA @ HAR
5:30 PM
CHA @ BOU
6:00 PM
WAR @ ORL
7:00 PM
Sunday, June 12th
YD @ BRE
5:00 PM
HAR @ FAL
5:30 PM
COT @ WAR
5:30 PM
BOU @ HYA
6:00 PM
ORL @ CHA
7:00 PM
The entire summer's Cape League schedule can be found right here.
