By Nathan Vaughan
FALMOUTH – Every summer, about 300 of the best college baseball players from around the country head to Cape Cod to play in the Cape Cod Baseball League, widely considered the best summer league in the world. Many of these players are drafted and later play in the Major Leagues.
As of 2007, there were 212 former Cape Cod Baseball League players on major League rosters, including Red Sox players Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Varitek, Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis and former Northeastern standout Carlos Pena.
Northeastern players, coaches, trainers, and interns have been involved with the league for many years.
This year, five players and one athletic trainer started the season with the league, including outfielders Mike Tamsin and Tony Dicesare; catcher Frank Pesanello; pitchers Jeff Thomson and Ryan Quigley; and trainer Katie O’Sullivan.
Quigley and O’Sullivan have stuck with the league all season. The others served as temporary players, which the league uses while many roster players participate in the College World Series.
Quigley, a middler business and finance management dual major, said he plans on staying in school and getting a degree, but also wants to enter the Major League Baseball draft in the future. He said he hopes playing in the Cape League can help him accomplish this. This summer he is playing for the Harwich Mariners.
A resident of Taunton, Quigley grew up watching Cape League games in nearby Chatham and Cotuit, he said. Quigley’s parents and friends go down to the Cape to see him pitch on the nights he starts, he said.
“I’d always wanted to play here since I was little. I grew up spending summers on the Cape going to Cape League games,” Quigley said. “I always looked up to those guys. I played in New York last year and I really wanted to come here this year and see how I matched up. This is the best league out there, so I wanted to see how I matched up against everyone else.”
Every summer, players stay with local host families, who adopt a second and sometimes even third person in their home for the summer. These athletes become part of the family for the two months of the season.
“These people, they just volunteer to take kids in,” Quigley said. “They really don’t know who they are going to get, so it’s a big thing on their part that they’re letting you into their home for the summer. My host family treats me like I’m one of their own. It’s been a real great experience for me.”
Part of the tradition in the Cape Cod Baseball League is living with a host family and working a job in the mornings. He works at the weekly instructional camp the Mariners host.
Part of the reason the league draws so many players is in part due to its reputation as being the premier place for the nation’s top college amateurs to play each summer. The top players draw scouts from all the Major League teams. At each game there are a number of scouts grouped together behind the backstop with radar guns in hand.
After a less than stellar season with Northeastern in which he went 2-4 with an 8.06 ERA, Quigley has turned it around in a big way, all against the best competition in the country. Quigley has posted a 2-0 record in three starts, with two relief appearances. In 20 innings of work he has a 3.15 ERA with opponents batting just over .200 against him.
Katie O’Sullivan has impacted the Cape League in a much different way as a senior athletic training major currently working with the Falmouth Commodores. O’Sullivan is a native of Canton, and grew up following the Cape Cod Baseball League because her family spent their summers on the Cape.
As a trainer, O’Sullivan’s experience in the Cape Cod League is different than that of the players. For O’Sullivan, this internship is about expanding her job experience and networking, she said. On the Cape she isn’t under supervision on the job, so for the most part she is the only decision maker, though there is an orthopedic surgeon present. This has allowed her to improve her decision-making skills, and made her more sure about herself, she said.
O’Sullivan said she has learned many new techniques with the players from all across the country, each of whom wants his own way of stretching.
“Working with the guys has been an unbelievable experience. ” O’Sullivan said. “As much as it’s tough because you aren’t making money, what you are taking out of it will help you so much more in the long run. I’ve learned so much.”