Cape Cod League Formation
Cape Cod League first came to light with a newspaper clipping from 1867. . It took place in Sandwich and was the Nichols Club taking on a team from Cummaquid. The actual league had not begun yet. On Luly 4, 1885 there was a game held between Barnstable and Sandwich. It wasn’t the first time on this holiday this year attracted many onlookers for the annual game. The Barnstable County Fair held a baseball tournament each fall with teams from the Cape Cod area and beyond. In 1921, the County Fair decided that all teams must be from the Cape area. The first championship in 1921 went to Falmouth and Osterville won in 1922. Baseball had plenty of followers t this time.
There was a movement to begin the Cape Cod League and in 1923 it was completed with four teams that included Falmouth, Osterville, Hyannis, and Chatham. The teams were made up of prep school kids and local colleges along with some players that were dubbed a semi pro player.
Cape Cod League History
Teams came and went for awhile.Some towns would opt to not field a team every year. Team were not forced to play only league games as some played larger cities an in 1929, Falmouth took on the major league team Boston Braves.
In the 1930’s there was a lot of interest in Cape Cod League baseball. When the Great Depression came to America, the league folded on 1940.
Tje Cape Cod League came back to life in 1946 as young men returned from World War II. They would limit it to Cape Cod residents It was as enjoyable nor could they get enough local players to keep the league afloat. In 1963, they reorganized and allowed the recruitment of college player and coaches from a larger area.
Cape Cod League 1963-2020
Cape Cold League was reorganized once again and became sanctioned by the NCAA. The league no longer limited the teams to only Cape Cod residents as teams could recruit college players from a wide radius.
Rhe league moved away from aluminum bats in 1985 and became the only collegiate league to use wooden bats. With the new popularity, scouts of MLB teams began attending and looking for player for their team at these games.
Over a thousand players have gone on to play in the major leagues and multiple members of the Hall of Fame participated in the Cape Cod League. The league played 44 games against each other and they ran from mid-June to mid-August with teams in divisions. The re is an All-Star game played near the middle of the schedule between the East and West divisions.
Upon the completion of the regular season there is a playoff of the top four teams in each division with three rounds to determine aleague champion and awarded the Arnold Mycock trophy.
Following the regular season, the top four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs, which is an elimination tournament consisting of three rounds of best of three series to determine the league champion and winner of the Arnold Mycock trophy.
In 2020, the league was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
Cape Cod League 2021
There are ten teams in 2021 and they league will play 40 games. The first set of contests takes place on June 20th.
The teams are:
Bourne Braves
Harwich Mariners
Brewster Whitecaps
Hyannis Harbor Hawks
Chatham Anglers
Orleans Firebirds
Cotuit Kettleers
Wareham Gatemen
Falmouth Commodores
Y-D Red Sox
OTHER COLLEGIATE LEAGUES-
Arizona Collegiate Wood Bat League
Ban Johnson Amateur Baseball League
Carolina Virginia Collegiate League
Coastal Collegiate Baseball League
Corn Belt Summer Collegiate Baseball League
Florida Collegiate Summer League
Futures Collegiate League Of New England
Golden State Collegiate Baseball League
Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League
Intermountain Collegiate League
Kansas Collegiate League Baseball
Maryland Collegiate Baseball League
Palm Springs Collegiate League
Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League
Rocky Mountain Collegiate League
Southern Collegiate Baseball League
St. Louis Metro Collegiate Baseball League
South Florida Collegiate League
Sun Belt College Baseball League
Westchester/Rockland Wood Bat League
About the author– Tom Knuppel has been writing about baseball and sports for a few decades. As an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan he began with the blog CardinalsGM. Tom is a member of the United Cardinals Bloggers and the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. He also maintains the History of Cardinals website. More recently he has been busy at KnupSolutions and the primary writer of many sports at KnupSports and adds content at Sports 2.0. Tom is a retired High School English and Speech teacher and has completed over one hundred sportsbook reviews. He also can be followed on Twitter at tknup. Feel free to contact Tom at [email protected]
