Happy Thanksgiving to CodBall Readers
Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving. I started to come up with a list of the top 10 things a baseball fan does during this holiday season, but I think this image about says it all. Enjoy!
Read MoreLincecum Always a Mariner (Harwich, Not Seattle)
Only in baseball. An awkward, slim little pitcher who broke records in the Pac-10 conference for an unremarkable college team, the Washington Huskies, went on to pitch for an unremarkable Cape League team, the Harwich Mariners. This same pitcher, raised in the rain of western Washington, is overlooked by the other lowly Mariners — the drought-ridden Seattle Mariners – and drafted by the nearby San Francisco Giants. In the same year that his old Cape League Mariners win their summer session — and the Seattle Mariners continue their disappointment — the underdog pitcher overwhelms in San Francisco and wins the Cy Young in the National League. Always a (Harwich) Mariner. Congratulations, Tim Lincecum.
Read MoreWhy a Bad Economy is OK for the Cape League
Sports are generally what you get when you read the sports page. But these days news about the economic downturn (we will refrain from calling it a collapse) has migrated from the business page to the front page and now to the sports section. News reports in recent weeks from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere predict impacts in sports that range from small to dramatic. Support for new stadiums may decline and marketing deals to name those stadiums also are slowing. Will the economy impact the Cape Cod Baseball League? I don’t think so. At least not very much. The Cape League operates in a niche that, in my view, is largely recession-resistant. Its teams have small, efficient front offices, therefore, they have low overhead...
Read MoreAn Early Look at the Y-D Red Sox
For an early preview of the 2009 Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, go to: http://www.ydredsox.org/roster.htm There are four returning members from the ’08 Red Sox - Anthony Ranaudo (LSU; RHP), Josh Rutledge (Alabama; INF/OF), Tyler Waldron (Oregon State; RHP) and Andy Wilkins (Arkansas; 1B/DH). Joining Ranaudo will be Tiger teammates Austin Ross (RHP) and star catcher Micah Gibbs. Georgia, Florida and Stanford are represented with two players from each of those schools. Providing some local interest will be Derek Ingui who hails from Sterling, MA. and played at Wachusett Regional HS. Ingui is a sophomore at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH. and is listed on the Red Sox roster as a third baseman/outfielder. It is unusual to see players from...
Read MoreCape Leaguers Star in Fall, Winter Leagues
A few weeks after the last out of the World Series, as football and basketball takes over the sports pages, I start the annual longing for the return of baseball. Then I remember that not every place is as grey and dreary as my home in Seattle. That’s when I recall great baseball is still being played in sunny places like Hawaii and Arizona (not to mention the Venezuelan and Carribean Leagues). I took a peak this morning at the Hawaii Winter Baseball League and the Arizona Fall League. In both, familiar names like Buster Posey and Gordon Beckham are still starring — even though it’s November 2008. Y-D’s All-Star catcher, Posey, is leading the Hawaii Baseball League in both batting average (.418) and on-base percentage (.484). Beckham, the Georgia...
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