19 minute read
Baseball's Never-Never Land
Ageless players become the boys of summer at coastal baseball league
BY BRION O'CONNOR / PHOTGRAPHY BY MARK BOLTON
Under cloudless skies, with the bases loaded and no outs, the Pirates of the Coastal New England Baseball League are nursing a slim lead over the Rays.
Pirates pitcher Chuck White kicks and delivers. Rays captain Curt Gebo tags a liner that clips off the glove of the Pirates centerfielder, and Rays baserunners start scrambling.
By the time Carlos Dominguez rounds third base, he’s hobbling. When Dominguez gets to home plate, Pirates catcher Adam Johnson is waiting, ball in hand. There is no collision, no attempt to slide. Instead, there is simply a gentlemanly surrender. Both players smile.
A pop-up and a fly-out later, the Rays leave two men stranded, and the threat ends with minimal damage.
On this bright Sunday morning in September, Portsmouth’s Leary Field is humming with the sights and sounds of baseball. Umpires command the field — “Ball!” “Strike!” “Safe!” “Out!” — while spectators holler from the grandstand. Teammates and opponents exchange lively chatter and genuine laughter.
Players jog to and from their positions, resplendent in their uniforms, the yellow-clad Pirates versus the sky-blue Rays, followed by the burgundy Diamondbacks against the navy-blue Mariners in the nightcap.
These are not the “boys of summer,” as sportswriter Roger Kahn dubbed the Brooklyn Dodgers. With few exceptions, everyone is at least 30 years old. Many are considerably older, and some are well into their second half-century.
Many carry a few extra pounds around their midsections. Most have a hitch in their throwing motion, in their swing, or in their giddyup. None allow those tweaks to prevent them from stepping into the batter’s box, or taking their spot in the field.
These Peter Pan disciples are competing in the Coastal New England Baseball League, a wood-bat band of baseball diehards spread across six teams who gather to play the game they cherish every Sunday, from April to October.
“Being able to compete is really important. You can’t get that rush just anyplace,” says Dover’s John Cogan, 61, one of the league’s founders.
“That being said, it’s the relationships, the friends I make, that I really embrace," he says. "There are almost 100 players, and each one has a story. Some of my best friends are ballplayers. I love these guys.”
And Cogan loves a game that defines success as failing seven times out of 10.
“Ted Williams said hitting a round ball with a round bat is the most difficult skill in sports. He ain’t lying,” Cogan says. “It’s a brotherhood. We choose this game because it’s hard. Put on the uniform and step inside the lines, and you’ve joined us. We respect that.”
The Pirates and Rays continue to trade runs. The game features crisp hits and the occasional fielding gem.
Pirates centerfielder Grafton White (Chuck White’s nephew) atones for his earlier near-miss with a diving catch that’s worthy of an ESPN SportsCenter highlight. A Rays player steals second base after the ball arrives on several bounces. In fairness to the hitters, the umpires employ a generous strike zone. No one complains.
After a pair of infield hits put two Pirates on base, Sean O’Malley lofts the next Rays’ offering deep toward the fence. Though the Rays outfielder is able to corral the fly ball, his relay sets off a comical round of throwing errors, and the Pirates plate another run.
The draw of the CNEBL reflects the game’s allure. League president Matt “Mel” Allen, 60, from Portsmouth, says the national pastime is “a very cerebral game, full of many nuances. You’re a team, but so much depends on individuals performing their roles.”
The game “also has an air of unpredictability,” he says, where any team can get the best of another depending on how the ball bounces.
Richard Newman of Epping, a league founder, says he loves “everything” about baseball.
“The feel of making solid contact with a fastball, or tracking a fly ball deep to the outfield and making a difficult catch,” says Newman, 53. “I also love how, on any given day, any of the players may step up and do something special.”
There’s a moment in “Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns,” when narrator John Chancellor talks about the game’s enduring appeal: “Everything had changed, and nothing much had changed.” That speaks to the timeless quality of baseball, a game virtually unaltered in the more than 160 years since being introduced as “town ball.” And it may explain why baseball is one of those rare activities that can set its hooks deep.
For 37-year-old John Edwards of Nottingham, the league is a slice of hardball heaven.
“We know that once this game grabs ahold of you, it absolutely never lets go,” says Edwards in a video promoting his baseball-themed Behind the Plate restaurant in Portsmouth, which opened in late 2023.
“Baseball is unlike any other sport,” says Edwards, the Pirates’ captain. “Obviously, there’s the game and the 9 innings and the current roster. But baseball also allows us to talk about the past, and the heritage, and everything that the sport originated from.”
Nothing embodies that sentiment more than the league’s embrace of the time-honored wooden bat. Rather than the “ping” of a baseball coming off an aluminum bat, CNEBL games are defined by the “crack” of rawhide meeting wood.
Wooden bats, says Brian Yurick, a 44-year-old IT specialist from Maine, are “more authentic.”
Sure, wood bats also produce the occasional sting in the palms that can forever haunt former Little Leaguers. And some, like Eric Schlapak, another league founder, wouldn’t mind seeing the CNEBL adopt aluminum and composite bats.
“A wood bat almost defeats the purpose, because it’s not like we’re sluggers anymore,” he says.
But others say the wood-bat rule serves two purposes: It honors the game’s traditions while safeguarding players. “Growing up, and in college and the adult leagues, none ever employed a wooden bat,” says Allen, whose nickname is borrowed from Hall of Fame announcer Mel Allen. “I enjoy it, since it’s what the big leagues use. And it does help protect the fielders, as we have some younger guys who can rip the ball.”
Edwards was working at Stoneface Brewery in Newington when a CNEBL player came in, inquiring about potential sponsorship.
“As soon as he mentioned that the Coastal League was a wooden-bat league, I totally stopped listening to everything else he said, and wanted to figure out how I could get involved,” he says.
As the Pirates-Rays match stretches into the later innings, three female Pirates fans cheer on their men while wishing they would pick up the pace. “This game is taking forever,” says one. “There’s still two more innings.”
Another notices that the Pirates’ Chris Ricker is wearing cleats that match his yellow jersey.
“And they’re the perfect shade of yellow,” she says, giggling.
Despite a gutsy performance by Chuck White, the sexagenarian eventually runs out of gas, and gets the hook. The younger Rays pull ahead with a couple of runs in the eighth inning to secure an 11-9 win.
The Coastal League came into being in 2009, after a group including Cogan, Newman, Schlapak, Michael Sullivan, Tony Bargardo, Craig Annis, and Ben Ruggles broke away from a league they previously competed in, believing they could offer a better alternative.
“The driving force in getting the league off the ground was Ben Ruggles,” Schlapak says. “He passed away in December 2019. But he had experience in running leagues (Ruggles managed the Phillips Andover hockey rink), which the rest of us lacked. There’s no way the Coastal League would be around if it wasn’t for Ben and John Cogan.”
Starting with four teams, the league now has six. A key difference, from the start, was preventing managers, or teams, from stacking the proverbial deck.
“Our best rule is that we are a league of players, not teams,” Cogan says. “We redraft every year, so there are no dynasties. It breaks down barriers between players, and is the number one reason for our success.”
A major flaw of the prior league was that players stayed with the same teams, says Schlapak, “and the coach could add any players he wanted in the off-season via recruiting. The commissioner, who was also a manager, would get the best players on his team and never relinquish them.”
“The CNEBL has an honest draft, where players are universally rated by coaches and teams are restocked each year, with the goal of parity,” he says. “No one likes mercy rules or perennial champs. If you recruit someone, it’s for the league’s best interest, not a team’s best interest.”
The draft also fosters a deep sense of camaraderie, because players who are opponents one season may well be teammates the next year. “Over the six years I've played in the league, I’ve gotten to play with probably 90 percent of the players as a teammate,” Edwards says. “That’s created relationships.” Allen calls the draft the league’s “secret sauce.”
“Draft day is a big deal because you don’t know who will take you, and who you’ll be playing with,” says Allen. “But it’s exciting, and fulfills the idea of forming new relationships as teammates and competing against friends.
“Every season, hope truly springs eternal, since each year’s teams are different,” he says. “For some of the younger guys, this is a new concept, and it takes a season or two to understand how special it is.”
Diamondbacks pitcher Eddie Brown, who lives in Madbury but grew up in Portsmouth, understands. “To me, in a world where I feel like I don’t belong, baseball is the one place I always feel like I belong,” he says.
“The CNEBL is more than just a league of players. It’s a league of gentlemen, a league of brothers,” says Brown. “It’s a place to go where you can feel like a kid again, even though your body might say differently at times.”
The second game of the playoff doubleheader between the regular season champion Mariners (13-5) and the third-place Diamondbacks (11-8) starts as a pitching duel between Mariner fireballer Jesse Jay and the Diamondbacks’ Brown.
Brown spends so much time chatting up the Mariners that the umpire has to remind him to get back to the mound and pitch.
“I love this league and all of the players in it,” says Brown, 50. “This league helped me get through the death of my mother and when my fiancée left me and my daughter.”
Unlike Jay, one of the league’s hard-throwing young guns, Brown is crafty, not known for overpowering hitters.
“I consider myself a competitive person, but win or lose, this league is always a win. There is no lose,” he says. “Whenever someone gets a hit off me – and believe me, it happens a lot – I usually look over and tell them ‘nice rip,’ because that's my brother.”
Today, the CNEBL comprises players ranging from their early 20s to early 70s. The league is advertised as 29 and older, but special exemptions are allowed for children of current players (players younger than 29 aren’t allowed to pitch). For example, the Mariners’ Matt Gladu plays with his son, Alex.
Schlapak came out of a decade-long retirement in 2021 to play with his son, also named Alex. “He was 21 and a junior baseball player at Massachusetts Maritime Academy,” says Schlapak, a teacher in the Dover school system. “I came back so I could always say that we played a season together.”
“And my daughter played a game that summer with us too,” he says. “She was a good softball player at Wheaton College. She had a great hit that game. It was one of my favorite sporting experiences, playing on the same field as my kids.”
Brothers also get special consideration, and can play together if they prefer. The Pirates featured two sets of brothers, including Adam and Brian Johnson. Chuck White not only gets to keep living the dream playing with his brother Terry, but also with his nephew, Terry’s son, Grafton.
“My brother and I won a championship together in 2011,” says Michael Sullivan of Dover, another league founder. “It was our first time being champs together since the 1981 Kingston Astros. That’s quite a drought to break.”
But, as Cogan suggests, all these players are brothers. And coming together every Sunday can produce moments of magic.
“I go back to 2020, the year of COVID,” Edwards says. “In the middle of the summer, we’re all sitting out there, playing in masks, and trying to figure out what was going on in the world.
“It was a pretty incredible moment, to be surrounded by friends. And no matter what the opinions were about what was happening, it was just nice for all of us to still be able to put our arms around each other,” he says. “In a world that was kind of gnarly and nasty, it was nice to have that.”
Sullivan says the CNEBL has always puts a premium on sportsmanship.
“The only awards we hand out are the ‘Coasties’ for being a someone who just ‘gets it,’ ” says Sullivan, 50. “One of our original players was, without a doubt, the absolute epitome of what a great teammate is. Sweetest guy in the world, really good ballplayer – Dickie Bauer. He sadly passed away a few years back, and we renamed them the Dickie Bauer Coastie Awards in his honor.”
The game between the Mariners and the Diamondbacks quickly becomes a slugfest. One Mariner sneaks away to share a mid-game pizza with his wife and children. A Portsmouth patrolman stops by to check out the action. There is animated chirping, but it all appears to be in jest.
“In most cases, competition does matter, but in a fun way,” says umpire David Bartsch, of Farmington. “This is what makes me want to continue umpiring. I also want to have fun, but know that I have a job to do.
“Most players treat us with respect,” says Bartsch, 66. “I do my best, am respectful to them, and appreciate them being respectful to me for doing a tough job.”
Umpire Dan Schwarz, at 68, relishes the chance to participate.
“I really enjoy doing this league. Everybody is cool most of the time, and when they aren’t so cool, they calm down pretty quickly,” says Schwarz, of Portsmouth. “It’s fun to be able to play. It’s less fun to umpire, but that’s what I can do. It allows me to stay in touch with the game.”
While the Mariners get the better of the D’backs this day, 15-9, the Diamondbacks have the last laugh two weeks later. After squeezing past the Rays in the double elimination match, 2-1, the Diamondbacks staged a furious comeback to overtake the Mariners in the winner-take-all title game, claiming a dramatic 8-7 victory.
“The victory and the sportsmanship from the Mariners were just another chapter of the beauty of the league,” says Diamondback Paul Milone, 43, of East Hampstead.
“We all, collectively, held our heads high. Two solid teams duking it out in the field and hugging and shaking hands after the game is over is what this league is truly all about.”
The league’s next most important rule is that the games must be played. Since family and work commitments can prevent players from making games, teams can recruit substitutes or players “off the street” to fill rosters, Cogan says. Every player who shows up gets a spot in the batting order, and must play at least two innings in the field.
Again, the emphasis is on playing, not winning. The CNEBL website catalogs statistics and standings, which still matter. But lacing up their cleats, grabbing their bat and glove, and getting after it trumps everything else. That speaks to everyone’s inner child.
“You may be moving slower, but when you rip a base hit and drive in a run or make a nice play in the field, it gives you energy,” says Allen, who returned to competitive baseball in 2019 after a 22-year hiatus. “It also can be humbling in many ways, too. For me, personally, I can still rake, but I can’t run. So, many balls that would be doubles for younger guys are singles for me. We call those ‘dingles.’ ”
Elder statesmen often grudgingly accommodate their declining skills. “Older guys like me, I’m not playing shortstop, and I’m not playing centerfield,” Schlapak says. “There’s a lot of first basemen in this league.”
Baseball’s thoughtful nature might reward wily veterans, but any “older” athlete involved in physical activity also risks getting hurt. Most CNEBL players have dealt with an assortment of aches and pains. Some have suffered major injuries.
“One season, I dislocated my shoulder catching a fly ball, requiring surgery. And another season I broke my tibial plateau jumping over the catcher,” says 56-year-old Craig Annis of Hampton Falls, a league founder. “I scored, we won, and I had surgery.”
Allen has dealt with hamstring issues and spine surgery (he still hit a lofty .392 last season). Edwards once snapped his left elbow sliding into second base, but returned to the lineup nine weeks later. Cogan plays despite meniscus surgery in 2014, a right hip replacement in 2016, and a left knee replacement in 2020.
“I don’t run as well as I used to,” he says.
Cogan is thankful for being able to run at all. In 2018, while driving home after a league game with two other players, he went into cardiac arrest.
“Kevin Mitchell and Steve McManus performed CPR and saved my life,” Cogan says. “Players have taken CPR classes because of it. We have a defibrillator at one of the fields because of it. That has value.”
The wisdom of age also helps keep the game in perspective. “We all have to work on Monday,” Edwards, “so we try to respect it among each other as much as we can.”
Still, the fact that baseball is a game doesn’t diminish its importance.
“Although I know I can’t play this game forever, I love the fact that at 50 I can still play, and play at a decent level,” Brown says. “I promised my mother I’d play until I couldn’t play anymore, and I plan on doing just that in the Coastal League. It keeps me young.
“My dream was to play Major League Baseball for the Red Sox. That didn’t happen,” he says, laughing. “This is the next best thing.”
And it helps take the sting out of the 9-to-5 grind. Yurick, the IT specialist from Maine, favors baseball diamonds to computer screens:
“Even my worst day of playing baseball is better than my best day of work.”
For league details, leaguelineup.com/welcome. asp?url=coastalnebl. Writer Brion O’Connor’s hardball highlight came in 1998, when he stepped into the batter’s box at Fenway Park to take a few swings facing the Green Monster. He used a wooden bat.
STILL LOST IN THE GAME
Coastal League shortstop keeps Sundays free for ‘straight-up baseball’
By Paul Milone
Throughout the spring, summer and part of fall, Sundays are like Christmas mornings for me: Game day!
For those who have a family and busy lives, baseball is an escape. We all partake in our weekend morning routines, and then it is off to the ballpark to play in the Coastal New England Baseball League.
I have been playing baseball since I was 5 years old. At an age where children can’t sit still for two minutes, there is video proof of me in the “set” position for the entire game, waiting for the ball to be hit to me. When a fellow teammate made a mental error, I could be seen walking over to rationally discuss said error with the player or coach. I was truly lost in the game.
This summer will be my 14th season in the Portsmouth-based league. I was 30 when I discovered this baseball league for “has-beens” who are more than a decade out of their high school and college days of baseball. I dropped the numerous softball leagues I had been playing in and devoted myself to straight-up baseball.
I was growing tired of slow-pitch softball where guys twice my size would hit the cover off the ball or hit home runs like it was easy. Our league has live pitching that oftentimes tops 80 miles per hour. Nothing is a “gimme.” You have to earn every hit and every home run.
My primary position is shortstop. Although I don’t move as well as I did back in high school and college, I rely on the fundamentals of the game and usually make the plays. I often wake up the next morning, sore and achy as if I’ve just participated in a strong-man competition.
There is nothing like playing a nine-inning game on a hot summer day (severe humidity, withstanding), and then going home to shower and relax in front of the air conditioner.
More than half of the players have been in the league for as long as I have, but the superstar players of yesteryear are now finding themselves in the middle of the pack. Talent has been increasing as newer, younger blood are signing up to play.
My “summer family” has created some of the best days, moments and friendships of my life.
Paul Milone is sales and events coordinator for the New Hampshire Group of Yankee Publishing, the parent company of New Hampshire Magazine.
