There is a stretch of land, beaches, and historical landmarks on the eastern shore of Massachusetts called Cape Cod. The Cape (as many locals call it) experience begins the second you span the Cape Cod Canal over the Sagamore or Bourne Bridge and stays with you long after you have returned to Wareham, Boston, Rhode Island, or any other city/state/country. Cape Cod has an aura, it has a feeling that someone famous, someone significant, someone extraordinary has been there, has been to a diner in Harwich, been to a movie theater in Wellfleet, has been to an ice cream shoppe in Hyannis. A Cape Cod experience tells a different kind of story, it draws people in at parties to listen and wonder how cool it must have been to see this person or that celebrity or that musician eating a hamburger outside a 7-Eleven at 2am in Falmouth one night. Cape Cod, for me, will always have a special feeling. And it gets even cooler for me because of the Cape Cod Baseball League.

I have been involved with baseball my entire life, give or take a year or two here and there. I have run the bases at Fenway Park. I have played and pitched at historic Cardines Field. I have visited the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. I have attended Spring Training games, Minor League games, and even a World Series game. I have played, coached, and written about baseball my entire life yet I still get goosebumps walking into a summer league baseball game in Cape Cod. The Cape Cod Baseball League is the elite facing the elite in summer collegiate baseball action that is about as close to professional as you are going to get, period. There is the Cape League, and then there is the rest. With all due respect to the rest, the Cape draws the biggest college baseball stars, has the highest percentage of 1st, 2nd, 3rd round draft picks every year in Major League Baseball. It draws fans, sportswriters, bloggers (like myself), scouts, agents, kids, grandparents, aunts, uncles, Moms, and Dads, put it this way – entire villages go to see Cape Cod Baseball League games, and have for decades upon decades. Why? There is just something different about a Cape Cod Baseball League experience, something mystical and magical and wonderful all rolled up in that ball of leather.

So given my high opinion of the Cape Cod Baseball League, you have to know that my eyes popped out of my head when I saw a book on the shelf (at 2nd and Charles, Va Beach) called, The Last Best League, which featured a familiar baseball field on Cape Cod. When I opened the paperback book’s cover, it revealed a familiar map of Cape Cod, with ten teams mapped out across the Cape that make up, in fact, the best summer baseball league – the Cape Cod League. The book, by New England native and exceptional writer Jim Collins, was a bargain on sale and I quickly snatched it for my collection. I figured it might be a fictional story of a Cape Cod League hero or maybe a romantic comedy book similar to Cape Cod baseball movies that have been out about the league. I set out to read it on a recent trip to Arkansas, and found myself unable to put it down, it was that good!!! Chatham A’s, that name rings a bell or two.

You remember the Chatham A’s from the movie, Summer Catch, where A’s players frolicked with local girls, an exceptional drama occurs when a player’s local social status conflicts with the rich of the Cape, good guy gets the girl and a big fat Major League Baseball contract in the end. Unrealistic, you could say that again. For clarification, there is a real Chatham A’s and has been for decades. They employ a ton of volunteers, they recruit some of the best college baseball players in the country, they have a dedicated staff of coaches and groundskeepers and host fans, families, and probably some of the players get signed right off the playing field after a game, a month, a season. But not everyone’s story has a Hollywood ending in the Cape Cod Baseball League.

The Last Best League is a truly honest account on what life is like or shall I say was like in the Summer of 2002, for a roster of Chatham A’s players, host families, coaches, sponsors, and families associated with the team. It chronicles players as they arrive into Chatham from a number of states, having just wrapped up their Spring collegiate seasons. Little known fact for many, you don’t get to choose the Cape Cod Baseball League to play in, it chooses you. College coaches develop relationships with summer collegiate league coaches and place their players in strategic areas and on strategic teams for development. Sure, there are some tryouts here and there but for the most part, the teams are built by the college coach and the summer league organizational staff. Another shocker, the rosters for the following summer are usually being worked on during the current summer’s schedule. It’s that tough to get into and that tough to crack. The Last Best League does a masterful job of explaining this further. And this was 2002, imagine the process now with the improved software and technology at these coaches’ disposal.

I absolutely loved the Cape references in the book. The fishing ponds, the bars, the street names, the towns, the villages, the baseball fields I have visited. I was riding those buses from Chatham to Wareham, looking out for my Nanny’s house on Sawyer St. I was getting out of my car at Red Wilson Field to check out the scene and the fans gathered in left field. I was behind home plate with the other scouts at Yarmouth-Dennis High School, just soaking it all in watching those great Chatham A’s players on a hot July evening, ice cream melting in one hand and a Cape League program in the other. This is what great writing does – it puts you there, with the writer, there at the field, there at the bars, there at the beach for a late night fire. Jim Collins puts you there and it was so amazing to be a part of it.

I especially loved the honest account of all the megastar collegiate baseball players who were simply humbled by the incredible competition of Cape Cod League Baseball. Players who were all-conference, maybe All-American status at their schools, who couldn’t pitch or hit worth a damn on the Cape. Players with draft status projections in the 1st round, who went on slumps for games, shaking their heads wondering when and how they could possibly break out of a slump. Baseball is a game of failure and it is that failure which is portrayed so masterfully in this book. You fail three times at the plate, then come up with the game on the line, get a hit, and all is forgotten. 1 success out of 4, and you don’t pay for a single beer after the game at your local pub. That’s baseball. Who helps you get over the slump, who can rise to the top of the competition on an important night, who will show their true colors in the face of adversity. The Last Best League chronicles this group of young men who had to face losing streaks, hitting droughts, injuries, self-doubt, success, summer jobs, the dreams of being a professional baseball player, and so much more.

If you are a baseball fan, if you are from New England or maybe have visited Cape Cod in your lifetime, you should pickup The Last Best League. You will not be disappointed. The local references are just awesome. I learned a ton more about the Cape league, which is saying something because I am already super obsessed with the Cape’s history. The 2024 Cape Cod Baseball League season is set to begin June 15th and those Chatham A’s will travel to Wareham to begin the next page in their epic book of baseball history. If you go to a game this summer on the Cape, keep your ticket, your program, and get ready to tell an incredible story about your experience at your Christmas party later this year. And in the meantime, buy yourself an awesome baseball present for your summer reading, on the Cape or wherever you live – Jim Collins’ The Last Best League.