Summer Happenings

Summer has finally arrived, and that brings with it something new and exciting here at Hot Corner Harbor.

For the next eight weeks, I will be interning for the Cape Cod Baseball League as a statistician, scorer and writer. For those of you who do not know, the CCBL is an amateur summer league for college players to hone their skills (located, of course, on Cape Cod, Massacheusetts). It’s notable for several reasons, like its use of wooden bats (very rare among leagues for college players, possibly unique, although I’m not 100% positive), and being older than the American League (no, really-the CCBL dates back to 1885, while the American League didn’t exist until 1901). It consists of two divisions, each with five teams. There’s the Western Division, which contains the Bourne Braves, Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Hyannis Harbor Hawks, and Wareham Gateman; and the Eastern Division, which holds the Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers, Harwich Mariners, Orleans Firebirds, and Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.

The league does also have a lot of relevancy to MLB; the CCBL magazine I picked up the other day lists 925 current and former Major Leaguers as alums. I also heard the statistic that 1 in 6 Major Leaguers played in the CCBL at some point. Also, the magazine’s cover proudly shows the eight current managers who played in the league once upon a time: John Farrell (Blue Jays), Joe Girardi (Yankees), Mike Matheny (Cardinals), Buck Showalter (Orioles), Jim Tracy (Rockies), Bobby Valentine (Red Sox), Robin Ventura (White Sox), and Eric Wedge (Mariners) four-fifths of the AL East, you may notice).

To add to the name-dropping, skimming the list of players reveals the likes of Dustin Ackley (HAR 2008), Jeff Bagwell (CHA 1987-8), Jason Bay (CHA 1999), Lance Berkman (WAR 1996), Craig Biggio (Y-D 1986), Mike Bordick (Y-D 1986), Ryan Braun (BRE 2004), Sean Casey (BRE 1994), Will Clark (COT 1983), Jacoby Ellsbury (FAL 2004), Carlton Fisk (ORL 1966), Nomar Garciaparra (ORL 1993), Todd Helton (ORL 1994), Charlie Hough (CHA 1964), Jeff Kent (COT 1988), Jason Kipnis (COT 2008),Tim Lincecum (HAR 2005), Evan Longoria (CHA 2005), Mark Mulder (BOU 1997), Thurman Munson (CHA 1967), Carlos Pena (HAR 1996, WAR 1997), Buster Posey (Y-D 2006-7), Brian Roberts (CHA 1998), Tim Salmon (COT 1998), Nick Swisher (WAR 2000), Mark Teixeira (ORL 1999), Frank Thomas (ORL 1988), Pie Traynor (FAL 1919), Chase Utley (BRE 1998, COT 1999), Matt Wieters (ORL 2006), Kevin Youkilis (BOU 2000), and Barry Zito (WAR 1997-8). And those are just the ones I felt like mentioning, as there are plenty more to choose from.

So yeah, it’s kind of important. I am absolutely thrilled for the opportunity to help out with this league in any way possible.

What does this mean for Hot Corner Harbor, though? Well, I’ll still be writing MLB-based stories. I’ll just also be writing about this year’s Cape Cod Baseball League season too. There will probably be some game summaries and some articles about statistics in the league. There may also be some interviews with players or other things. I’ll just see where this goes. It’s definitely something else to look forward to in coming weeks, though.