CodBall Conversation: Summer Ball on the West Coast
Dan Tritle of WCAI (Cape & Islands NPR) caught up with us again this season. This time, Greg mainly talked about his experience being one of the owners of the Walla Walla Sweets, who just completed their inaugural season as a ball club in the West Coast League. The West Coast League is a wood bat summer league similar to the CCBL, and currently features nine teams from Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. Download from...
Read MoreCodBall Conversation: End of Season on NPR
Dan Tritle (WCAI-FM) caught up with CodBall’s Greg Shaw for a 2009 end of season interview on Monday, August 10th. Download from CodBall.com
Read MoreCodBall Conversation: Brian Foley of The College Baseball Blog
If you follow college baseball, chances are you are either a regular reader of The College Baseball Blog or you’ve stumbled across it in your online searches. The blog’s creator is Brian Foley, and he sat down with us for a CodBall Conversation after the recent rain-shortened Cape League All-star game at Fenway Park. Whether you find Brian online or in person, he conveys the weary sense of a man never too far from his computer. The number of games and announcements he juggles is staggering. Claims of size and depth on the Internet are often exaggerated but Brian’s claim to be the “ultimate source for college baseball news and notes” is pretty accurate. Sitting in Fenway Park’s press box on a rainy summer evening, I was curious...
Read MoreNew Children’s Book Tells Story of CCBL
I’ve commented in the past that the bookshelf is beginning to sag beneath the weight of books about the Cape Cod Baseball League. There are narrative accounts of a season, historical accounts reaching back over 100 years, picture books and guides. What has been missing has been a novel, a SABR-like encyclopedia and a children’s book. Well, wait no longer for the children’s book. This summer Cape Cod’s own Diane Troy has written along with illustrator Charr Flloyd a delightful children’s book for Mascot Books. Summer Ball (with a Cape League logo on the cover) is a simple overview of the CCBL that begins with a player arriving at a host family’s house. Young readers then get a tour of the league, visiting each team and...
Read MoreCodBall Conversation: Tom Simon, Creator of Cape League Dice Baseball Game
EDITOR’S NOTE: CodBall continues its partnership with WCAI/WGBH NPR for the Cape and Islands. Broadcasted on Monday morning June 8th, Dan Tritle and I previewed the 2009 Cape season, and we interviewed Tom Simon for the latest CodBall Conversation. Download from CodBall.com * * * Its history reaches back as far as baseball itself, and this Thursday the Cape Cod Baseball League begins its 124th season. Over the past several years WCAI has teamed up with CodBall to bring forward voices and stories from the league. This week our CodBall Conversation is with Tom Simon, who has created a novel game based on statistics emanating from top players in the Cape League over the past decade. For many baseball enthusiasts, the...
Read MoreCodBall Conversation: Veteran Scout, Mel Didier, Tells Us A Story
In Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe tells Ray that if he builds it (the field) they will come. The Cape Cod Baseball League might as well have a parallel quip, “if the scouts don’t come, neither will the top talent.” I had the great privilege recently of spending a little time with one of the great scouts, Mel Didier. Mel is currently with the Texas Rangers but also played important roles with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Montreal Expos, Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks. “I don’t know of anyone who has been in more baseball parks throughout the world,” Fred Claire, one-time GM of the Dodgers, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. I ran into Mr. Didier recently in Yakima, Washington, where his son,...
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