SMALLS TALK: Summer Leagues- Cape Still Cream of the Crop?

When it comes to collegiate baseball summer leagues, there's the Cape, and then there's the rest. The Cape Cod Baseball League annually attracts the nations top talent, and as a result draws Major League Baseball's most intrigued scouts. Every game is an All-Star game, and summers on the Cape can literally make or break you as a professional prospect. But why? There are countless summer wood-bat leagues spread throughout our nation- what's the Cape got that these other leagues don't? Well, a lot.

First off, the league is played at a location where most people vacation. These are beach towns that are hoppin' in the summer. They're jam-packed with bikini-clad girls, great restaurants, and adoring baseball fans- and what does the town do every night? Show up in mobs to support their boys on the diamond.

Once the players arrive on the Cape, games start in mid-june and the regular season ends first week in August. You make the championship? You're done August 13th. Last year the Northwoods League regular season didn't end until August 14th, and that's after a June 1st start date. The Northwoods is a league that's on the rise in attracting talent, considered by many to be "second to the Cape," maybe even "1A" in the eyes of some- but it will never be the Cape.

The Northwoods, like many other leagues, does its best to emulate the minor league experience. I played in both the Northwoods and the Cape and I can tell you there's no comparison. Sure they're very similar with regard to talent level, and the Northwoods even draws higher attendance numbers than the Cape, but the CCBL will always be tops. Ask most players in the Northwoods if they want to finish their summer on the Cape and they'd be on their way to the airport before you finish the question. 

Northwoods can compete on the diamond, but it's the experience that separates the two: the 70-game seasons, the 12-hour bus rides, the middle-of-nowhere towns- it's basically a summer internship in the minor leagues and what these leagues don't realize as they advertise this taste of life in the pros is that minor league life sucks. Small, shitty towns? Staying cooped up inside all day to keep away from weirdo meth-heads roaming the streets? Long ass bus rides? Games every single day? Unless there's the hope of getting called up, unless there's that MLB dream dangling in the balance, why would a star college player sign up for 70 games in addition to the 60+ he just played at school? This is college.

Same can be said about the Alaska League, the Prospect League, the NECBL, and countless others. The talent is there, but it's the experience. On the Cape you play at high school fields and fans bring lawn chairs to set up down the baselines. You're longest drive is 45-minutes down the road and you carpool to get there. It's high school ball all over again- it reminds you of a simpler time and no one questions it or complains because of all the greats who played on those fields and drove those roads before them.

The tradition of talent on the Cape is amazing, and it's resoundingly upheld by today's generation as 250 league alums were chosen in the 2010 MLB draft- is that even possible? One in every four college players selected in the draft had played in the Cape Leage at some point- I mean that's just plain silly.

Other leagues attract great talent, but the nation's top talent will always flock to the Cape because of the overall experience. Shorter schedule, beautiful beach towns, easy travel. These are all the factors that ultimately result in the country's highest level of competition, bleachers flooded with scouts, and big crowds of fans on a nightly basis. And oh yeah, the league's All-Star game is played at Fenway Park; tell me that's not a thrill for a 20-year old kid.

It's not the minor league experience players are after; they'll have to deal with that when the time comes. They're in college, they just played a grueling schedule- they want to play good baseball but it's the summer: they want to have fun.

Book Shoutout: The Last Best League by Jim Collins
(Great inside look at what a summer playing on the Cape is really like- far more accurate and enjoyable than watching "Summer Catch")

SMALLS TALK Series
SportsCenter Commercials are Better Than Most Shows
Schilling's Bloody Sock
Red Sox Nation Goes Crazy, JD Drew Can't Be Bothered
Minor League Hats are the Way to Go
Who Has the Best Uniforms in College Baseball?

MOVIE RANT: Summer Catch

*I'd like to preface this post by saying that "Summer Catch" is just an awful movie. The Boston accents make me cringe, the baseball scenes make me wonder if anyone on set has ever played a sport, and the acting has me firmly believing that I could head to Hollywood right now, star in a movie, and become the nation's next heart-throb young actor..

Equipment is an area where a lot of movies lose their authenticity. For example, Freddie Prinze, Jr.'s glove in Summer Catch is too big. Way too big. He's supposed to be a bigshot pitching prospect and he's walking around with a slow-pitch softball outfielder's mitt. It's no wonder he got kicked off his college team with that Rick Vaughn replica glove. He walks off the field one out shy of a no-hitter to chase a girl (granted it was Jessica Biel, probably not a bad move), yet the size of his glove is the aspect of the movie that I find unrealistic. Attention to detail, Hollywood. You can have the most far-fetched plot in the world and I'll eat it up, unless you have a pitcher sportin' a 15-inch Rawlings. Clean it up.

In the same movie Matthew Lillard, who tries so hard to be funny it hurts, plays a catcher from USC who has some trouble adjusting to the wood bats of the Cape League. Sure, he's having a tough go but I think he gets a raw deal when in the FIRST GAME, after maybe two at-bats, he walks to the plate to the announcer saying, "Brubaker's really struggled with these wooden bats this year, he's had a real difficult time here on the Cape." He's 0 for 2 on the season! Ten seconds later he could've been batting .333. I would've turned around and flipped the announcer the bird right then and there. 

Lillard later breaks a bat over his knee in a tirade after striking out (1:32 mark). This is ridiculously hard to do. I mean really hard. I tried once and not only did I not succeed but I thought I broke my thigh in two. A Dominican on my team this summer did it, a brand new Maple M110. I'm still in awe. Forget stats, shit like that gets you to the Bigs.

One more critique: Freddie Prinze, Jr.'s character says "Come on Blue! Get off your knees your blowin' the game" under his breath on the mound after a questionable call. I mean come on. I thought that line was reserved for 12 year-old spectators trying to get a cheap laugh out of their buddies at the ball game, and even then the kids he's with are like "yeah yeah, good one dude..."

Some Hollywood nerd who's never played baseball definitely heard that line and thought it was pure gold, doing his best to force it into the movie with no regard for credibility. And then when the coach goes out for a mound visit, Prinze serves up that line's soulmate: "Does his wife know he's screwin' us?" I don't think I've ever heard one of those lines without the other being uttered immediately 2 seconds after, at most. Both just awful in-game chatter, laughable really.

(Check out the "Tip Drill" at the beginning of the movie's trailer. Are you kidding me? When have you ever heard of a baseball team- high school? little league? tee ball? wiffle ball?- tip a ball behind their heads and up to each other? What does that work on? How does that make you better? Was the only sports consultant available for this movie a former high school football defensive back? I can assure you every Chatam A would laugh in Coach Schiffner's face if he pulled that drill out of his ass for the team's first practice. Stuff like that gets you laughed out of the Hawaii League, never mind the Cape.)