The Romance of the Cape Cod League
This article was written by Mark S. Sternman
This article was published in Cape Cod Baseball League: From College Stars to Big League Futures (2026)
First-base dugout, Judy Walden Scarafile Field at McKeon Park, Hyannis June 11, 2023.
In a charming ballpark, on a nice day, with friends and food in the stands, cheering on favorite teams, a fan can find baseball a beautiful, even lovely, game. As Branch Rickey said about picking players, out of quantity comes quality, which leads to a dilemma: do those who attend many games become ardent rooters because we have had more chances to see memorable outcomes or does seeing compelling contests make observers lifelong fanatics?
Like most SABR members, I have followed great games in person, on television, and on the radio, all of which, along with countless others, have increased my love for baseball. While most of these games have taken place at the major-league level, I have even seen some Cape Cod League games on rare occasions.
The informality of the Cape Cod League greatly contributes to its charm. On June 11, 2023, I spent part of a day in Hyannis wandering around an empty Judy Walden Scarafile Field at McKeon Park, taking this photo from my perch on the bench in the first-base dugout.
The hard seat seemed far away from the comforts of the big leagues, but of course playing in the Cape Cod League jump-started the careers of many hopefuls, including Brandon Inge, who over the course of 13 years in the majors, mostly for the Detroit Tigers, hit 152 homers, made an All-Star team, and played in a World Series.
Inge’s short stint with the Bourne Braves not only boosted his baseball prospects but changed his life off the field, as he also met Cape Cod native Shani Mason, chief of staff for a Massachusetts state senator. A magazine article noted, “Politics and baseball have had their historic tussles, but the two spheres can also blend benignly, and at one of the summer league’s functions at which the senator’s office participated, Inge and Shani got acquainted.”1
I have little in common with bigtime athletes, but just as Brandon and Shani got married, more than a decade later I wed Shani’s officemate and, years after that, became a chief of staff to a Massachusetts state senator. Like a good baseball game, personal and professional lives take many unpredictable twists and turns, but every time I see a reference to the Cape Cod League, I contemplate the happy happening that forever changed the lives of Brandon and Shani Inge.
Although living just 80 minutes by car from the closest Cape Cod Baseball League fields, MARK S. STERNMAN has seen surprisingly few CCBL games and blames his even closer proximity to Fenway Park for this shortcoming.
NOTES
1 Lynn Henning, “Home at Third,” HOUR Detroit Magazine, April 1, 2011.