Clarinda is the birthplace of band leader Glenn Miller.  The 4-H movement began there.  Every summer Clarinda hosts Baseball Day.  The good folks of Clarinda love their baseball.  They always have.

Clarinda’s love affair with baseball goes back many years.  They even had a professional team in the old MINK League for a few years in the early 1900’s.  During the first half of the 20th century, Clarinda played host to a number of different teams in different leagues.  The teams and leagues may have changed over the years, but what didn’t change was Clarinda’s love of baseball.

In 1955, the Clarinda Merchants burst onto the scene.  The Merchants were sponsored by local businessmen (hence the team name) and their roster that first year included a player by the name of Merle Eberly.  Remember that name.  It will become important as we move forward with our story.

As the years wore on, the popularity of the team grew.  In 1958, lights were added to the field in Clarinda and the first night games in team history were played.  The next year, the team name was changed to the Athletics.  It was later shortened to the A’s.

In 1960, the town got serious about their Baseball Day celebration.  A board of directors was formed to organize and promote the annual event.  On that board of directors in 1960 was a guy by the name of Merle Eberly.

The A’s joined the semi-pro Nodaway Valley League in 1961 and that same Merle Eberly was named team manager.  He must have done a pretty good job because the team finished second in the league with a record of 28-8.  They also won the Clarinda Legion Tournament that year.

In the early days, the team was made up of local players, but in 1969, the A’s began to depend not only on local players, but also college players from around the nation who would spend their summer in Clarinda and help out the town team.  Inviting collegiate players to play on the A’s gained popularity and in the early 1970’s, the citizens of Clarinda stepped up financially to help the team recruit and house college players from outside the area.

In 1974, local doctor Bill Kuehn donated a bus to the team.  It was an important gift because the next season (1975), the team rode that bus all the way to Alaska to play teams from the Alaska Baseball League.  Despite the fact that the teams in the Alaska Baseball League were considered some of the best in the country, the A’s left Alaska with a 9-5 record and the respect of the team’s they played.  By the way, the shortstop for the A’s in that summer of 1975 was a  ball player by the name of Ozzie Smith.

1981 was a particularly good year for Clarinda.  The A’s not only won the Iowa State Championship, but they also won the prestigious National Baseball Congress Championship.  Six players from that 1981 team won a total of 12 awards in the NBC tournament.  And not surprisingly, A’s manager Merle Eberly walked away with the Manager of the Year award. 

In 1996, the A’s switched from the Jayhawk League to the newly formed MINK League.  The league was named in honor of the old pro MINK League of the early 1900’s, but the teams were made up of college players.  As you’d expect, Clarinda won the championship in that first year in the MINK League.

Manager Merle Eberly finally gave up the managerial reins in 1998.  He had been playing and/or managing the team since 1955; an unbelievable career lasting 43 years.  Although he stepped down as manager, Eberly continued his involvement with the team by taking on the general manager duties.

Though the team had seen many good years throughout it’s history, 2008 was not one of them.  In 2007, GM Merle Eberly was diagnosed with prostate cancer.   He had surgery in October of that year, but in April 2008, Merle found out he had colo/rectal cancer.  The A’s patriarch was scheduled for surgery on June 6.

Then on June 1st, while returning from a road trip, the A’s bus caught fire and was destroyed.  Along with the bus, the team lost all of their equipment and the players lost their personal belongings.  The team was able to get off the bus safely and thankfully no one was injured. 

The team had never faced a crisis of this magnitude in their history.  But thankfully for the A’s, even 53 years after the team’s inception, Clarinda still loved baseball.  The community came together and the outpouring of support showed just how important the A’s are to the town of Clarinda.  A fund was set up by a local bank and donations started to pour in.  Former players contributed to the fund.  A visitor from Japan made a gift.  And the Philadelphia Phillies came through with several boxes of baseball equipment.  The A’s were literally rising from the ashes.

Despite the fact that he was facing surgery, Merle Eberly’s concerns were for his players.  Before he left for the hospital in Omaha, Merle was assured by the board of directors of the A’s that the player’s shoe’s, gloves, and other equipment would be replaced and that the season would go on as planned.  Amazingly, the A’s only had to reschedule one game.

The 2009 season dawned with a sense of gratitude and renewal.  The team had new equipment and the players had new uniforms.  And leading the organization once again was Merle Eberly. 

The 2009 season was full of ups and downs.  The team finished with a 23-22 record good for third place in the MINK League’s North Division.  But no one was complaining in Clarinda.  They knew the hardships the team had seen in 2008 and were just thankful they still had a team in 2009.

As the A’s prepare for 2010, a lot has changed.  As happens every year, some players leave and others come in to replace them.  There are even new MINK League teams in Omaha, NE and Excelsior Springs, MO for the A’s to play.  But some things don’t seem to change in Clarinda.  The community still loves the team, Baseball Day is still a big event, and Merle Eberly is still leading the charge for the A’s. 

Merle may not be able to run the bases like he used to, but he is still the heart and soul of baseball in Clarinda, Iowa; a small town that has a big love for baseball and their baseball team.

One of these new teams will be the Syracuse Salt Cats.  Mike Martinez will serve as the team’s GM and field manager.  Martinez brings over 20 years of baseball experience to the Salt Cats including four years as a coach at Solvay High School in Solvay, NY.  At the moment, it is unclear where the Salt Cats will play their home games.  The Eastern Collegiate Baseball League and the Salt Cats are working out the details and hope to make an announcement soon.

The other new team in the ECBL will be the Herkimer Bandits.  The Bandits will be led by Keith Hendricks.  Hendricks is a former All-American baseball player at Herkimer County Community College.  He led the Generals to a 3rd place finish in the Junior College World Series in 2007 before moving on to complete his college career at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL.  Following his playing career, Hendricks returned to Herkimer County Community College where he now serves as an assistant coach and recruiter for the Generals baseball team.

With the addition of the two new teams, the Eastern Collegiate Baseball League is now up to eight teams and has split the league into two divisions.  The East Division features the Utica Brewers, Herkimer Bandits, Amsterdam (Tri-County) Bees, and the Schenectady Pirates.  The West Division will consist of the 2009 ECBL Champion Rome Thunderbolts, Sherrill Silversmiths, Syracuse Salt Cats, and the Oriskany Blazers.

More information can be found on the Eastern Collegiate Baseball League website.

Texas has a rich tradition of having some of the best baseball players in the country.   But in 2003, Texas did not have anywhere for their college baseball stars to play in the summer.  As a result, players who wanted to play summer college league baseball had to travel to another part of the country to play in leagues like the Cape Cod, Alaska, and Northwoods.  That’s when former Dallas Baptist University Athletic Director Wayne Poage set out to change things.

Poage understood better than most what a great opportunity Texas had to keep its college baseball players home in the summer.  He knew that there was an abundance of talent as well as areas all around the Dallas Metroplex that would support local baseball teams.

To build his new league, Poage set out to find people interested in starting teams.  He worked his network of contacts and talked to anyone who would listen.  As a result, in the summer of 2004, Poage found himself at the head of an eight team summer college baseball league.

In that inaugural season, the Texas Collegiate League teams included the Granbury Generals, Highland Park BlueSox, Graham Roughnecks, Coppell Copperheads, McKinney Marshalls, Rutherford Wranglers, Mineral Wells Steam, and the Colleyville-Grapevine Lonestars.  In season number two, the team in Granbury was replaced by the Denton Outlaws and the Graham Roughnecks moved to Wichita Falls.

On the field, the Texas Collegiate League was a success.  Baseball fans in the Dallas area were treated to some top-notch baseball throughout the summer.  Unfortunately, the league was hurting financially.  To stop the flow of red ink, Poage turned to Dallas businessman Gerald Haddock.  Haddock, who had made his fortune in oil and gas drilling, as well as real estate, was a baseball fan, and he saw the potential of the league.  Along with his investment came a determination to run the league like a business.

In 2006, the Brazos Valley Bombers joined the league, which was now up to nine teams.  Brazos Valley was the first team from outside the immediate Dallas area to become members of the TCL. 

The on-field product continued to impress, but there was a growing divide between Haddock and the team owners.  Haddock wanted to run the Texas Collegiate League as a business and a profit center, but several team owners felt that Haddock’s profit was coming at their expense.

Following the 2007 season, the team owners met with Haddock and gave him an ultimatum; either let them run the league themselves or they were going to leave and go off on their own.  Haddock didn’t like either option and told the group that he would sue each of them if they left the league.  When several of the teams announced they were splitting from the league, Haddock was true to his word and filed suit.

Of the nine teams in the league at the time, three teams were more interested in competing on the baseball field than they were in fighting it out in court.  When Haddock indicated a desire to divest himself of the league, the owners of the Brazos Valley Bombers, Coppell Copperheads, and McKinney Marshalls made him an offer.  Haddock accepted, and the TCL had new owners.  Haddock remains involved, although his involvement is now of a more ceremonial nature.  The league’s championship trophy is named in his honor and his foundation continues to support the league.

The first thing the new owners set out to do was to change the league from a for-profit corporation into a cooperative owned by and run for the benefit of the team owners.  Brazos Valley Bombers owner Uri Geva was elected president and the new league set out to find more teams.

From the beginning, the new owners had a vision.  They wanted to run the financial side of their teams like minor league baseball clubs, with all of the marketing and promotions that comes with that business model, but they didn’t want to sacrifice the experience or development that the players would receive. 

For the 2008 season, the East Texas PumpJacks joined the league.  The PumpJacks, located in Kilgore, TX, further expanded the geographical reach of the league.

In 2009 the TCL added the Victoria Generals.  It was an exciting year.  The Coppell Copperheads won their third championship in six years and the league was poised for even further growth.

For 2010, the league has added two more teams and has expanded its schedule.  The Texas Tomcats are owned by the same group that owns the Victoria Generals and they will play their home games in Weimar, TX.  The Alexandria Aces, a former Continental League franchise, will play in Alexandria, LA; the first team to join the league from outside of Texas.

The vision of teams being profitable and players having a great experience remains the same for the Texas Collegiate League today.  According to TCL President Uri Geva, the league is also looking to continue their expansion.  Geva says that he can see a time in the near future when the league will have 12 teams across Texas and Louisiana.  Geva can also envision TCL games being broadcast on TV soon.

In a rather short time, the Texas Collegiate League has become one of the best run, most highly respected summer collegiate baseball leagues in the country.  Despite their humble beginnings and internal disputes, the league has emerged strong and is poised for growth.  There’s no doubt that the future is looking bright for the Texas Collegiate League.

A week or two ago, I spoke to one of the team owners who told me that the league would be moving forward with their season.  They had added a new team to the league and he was looking forward to the season.  But in just the last two days, the decision was made to reorganize the league and get back to baseball in 2011.   An announcement from Commissioner Tom Davis is expected as early as next week.

Following the 2009 season, the Clark Griffith League lost two teams.  The Southern Maryland Cardinals made the decision to switch to the Cal Ripken, Sr. Collegiate Baseball League for the 2010.  The Carney Pirates decided that they were not going to compete at all in 2010.

Things started to look up at the first of the year when the league agreed to add the Reston River Dogs to the league.  It’s unknown exactly what happened in the past few days, but whatever it was, it led the league to decide to suspend play for all of 2010.

I’ll update this story as soon as I have additional information.

First, the Southern Maryland Cardinals, the 2009 CGL Champs, announced that they were leaving the league in favor of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Collegiate Baseball League.  Then in December, the Carney Pirates announced that they were going to sit out the 2010 season to “focus on more pressing matters.”

The Clark Griffith League entered the new year with just three teams and the rumors started to fly that the league was on its last leg.  The future of this historical league did not look promising.

The Clark C. Griffith Collegiate Baseball League, formerly known as the National Capital City Junior League, was formed in 1945.  In the earliest years, games were played around Washington, D.C., including on the Ellipse behind the White House.

The league was pushed along by the financial help of Clark Griffith, the then-owner of the Washington Senators.  To honor Griffith, the league was renamed the Clark Griffith Memorial Baseball League upon Griffith’s death in 1955.  The name was again changed in 1993 to the Clark C. Griffith Collegiate Baseball League.

In 1966 the league moved it’s home base to Northern Virginia and all games were played on the baseball field at George Mason University.  That set-up worked for 20 years, but in 1987, each team secured their own playing field in their local community.

Throughout it’s history, the Clark Griffith League has participated in national post season tournaments.  The league has sent teams to both the All-American Amateur Baseball Association National Tournament and the National Amateur Baseball Federation National Tournament.  1986 was an especially good year for the Clark Griffith League.  They sent teams to both tournaments and captured championships in both.  Overall, teams from the Clark Griffith League have won 12 National Tournament Championships.

Despite struggling through tough times, the league is seemingly on the rebound.  In 2010, they will be adding the Reston River Dogs to the league.  In addition, there are hopes for more new teams.  Possible locations in Virginia for new franchises include Arlington, McLean, Fairfax, Herndon, and Alexandria.

In addition to any new franchises, the Clark Griffith League will welcome back the DC Grays, Fairfax Nationals, and the Vienna Senators, one of the most successful teams in league history. 

So, despite losing two teams this past off season, the Clark Griffith League will be back in 2010 with at least four teams, and maybe more.  Plans for the 2010 season are still being made and an announcement on a schedule and any additional teams should be made soon.

More information can be found on the Clark Griffith Collegiate Baseball League website.

As we reported previously, the Peekskill Robins were sold and moved to Torrington, CT.  The team will be known as the Torrington Titans and will play their home games at Fussenich Park.  Brian Leighton will assume the general manager duties and Greg Hunt will serve as the team’s head coach.  Hunt managed the Manchester Silkworms of the New England Collegiate Baseball League in 2009.  He is the all-time winningest coach in NECBL history.

The Long Island Mustangs have changed their name to the Long Island Collegians.  The name reflects the collegiate players that make up the team.  Long Island has hired Butch Caufield as their new GM for 2010.  He will be joined by former MLB pitcher Chris Rojas who will take on the field manager duties.  Rojas will be taking over a team that finished 2009 with a record of 7-33.

The Lackawanna Lumberjacks are a new franchise that will be joining the league.  The Lumberjacks will be bringing baseball back to the Scranton, PA area.  The GM for the expansion franchise will be Ron Aniska.  Aniska has a long history of involvement in youth baseball and softball around the Scranton area.  He will be assisted in the front office by Chris Pensak.  Pensak is currently the head baseball coach at Lackawanna College.  One of Pensak’s assistant coaches at Lackawanna College, Mike Petroski, will serve as the Lumberjacks head coach.

The other expansion franchise in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League will be the Staten Island Tide.  The Tide will be led by Tommy Weber, who will serve as both the franchise GM and the field manager.  They will play their home games at the College of Staten Island.

The Kutztown Rockies will not be part of the league in 2010.  The franchise will continue to exist, but team management hopes to use the time away from the league to shore up their finances and find a suitable home field on which to play.  They hope to be back in the league in 2011.

Due to the influx of new teams, departure of a team, and relocation of yet another team, the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League has reconfigured their divisions.  In 2010, the divisions will be aligned as follows:

 Wolff Division
Jersey Pilots
Lackawanna Lumberjacks
Lehigh Valley Katz
Quakertown Blazers

Kaiser Division
Long Island Collegians
North Jersey Eagles
Staten Island Tide
Torrington Titans

Hampton Division
North Fork Osprey
Riverhead Tomcats
Sag Harbor Whalers
Southampton Breakers
Westhampton Aviators

The Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League will be celebrating their 44th season in 2010.  The league schedule should be available in the next couple of weeks.

For more information, visit the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League website.

The Prospect League has had a busy off season.  The league has added three new teams and changed the ownership group for one of their existing teams.  If you follow summer college league baseball at all, it’s been hard not to notice how much the league has grown after just their first season.

The Prospect League came into existence when the teams from the old Central Illinois Collegiate League (CICL) merged with some former teams from the independent Frontier League.  The merger was meant not only to increase the size of the CICL, but to also build a first-class league on par with some of the established leagues like the Northwoods and Coastal Plain Leagues.  The idea was to not only get bigger, but also better.

The league’s roots go back to 1963 with the formation of the CICL.  The CICL was one of the charter members of the National Alliance of College Summer Baseball (NACSB), an organization dedicated to assisting member leagues to adhere to NCAA rules and regulations, as well as foster communication between NACSB members.  In addition to the Prospect League, the NACSB counts the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League, Cape Cod Baseball League, Florida Collegiate Summer League, Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League, New York Collegiate Baseball League, Southern Collegiate Baseball League, and the Valley Baseball League among its members.

Following the 2008 season, the five member teams of the CICL decided to add former Frontier League teams in Richmond, IN, Chillicothe, OH, and Slippery Rock, PA.  The league also added expansion teams in Hannibal, MO, Lorain, OH, and Butler, PA.  Since the old moniker of “Central Illinois” no longer fit, the league was re-branded as the Prospect League.

By just about any measure, the inaugural season of the Prospect League was a success.  The league completed a 53-game regular season and crowned the Quincy Gems as the first Prospect League champions.  The league also experienced significantly more popularity and interest than the CICL had in recent years.

Following the 2009 season, the Prospect League once again announced that it had expanded, adding franchises in Sycamore, IL, Terre Haute, IN, and Beckley, WV.  The league now spreads across six states and boasts 14 teams, up from just five teams two years ago.

Prospect League President Bryan Wickline (owner of the Chillicothe Paints) has been surprised at the interest the league has garnered following their inaugural season.  He’s also quick to point out that the league’s sudden growth is by no means uncontrolled. 

“We aren’t expanding just for the sake of expanding.  We will look at the markets that make sense in our Midwest footprint.  There are three things we look for as a league for expansion: 1) market, 2) facility, and 3) strong ownership.”

So, is the Prospect League done growing for a while?  There have been rumors that the league may add even more franchises.  “We will just grow as the industry grows and continue to strive to be the premier summer college league in the country,” Wickline said. 

Current Prospect League Teams

Eastern Division
Butler BlueSox
Chillicothe Paints
North Coast Knights
Richmond RiverRats
Slippery Rock Sliders
Terre Haute Rex
West Virginia Miners

Western Division
Danville Dans
DeKalb County Liners
Dubois County Bombers
Dupage Dragons
Hannibal Cavemen
Quincy Gems
Springfield Sliders

UPDATE: On 1/21/10 the Prospect League announced that they had awarded an expansion franchise to a group in Nashville, TN.  Click here for the story of the Outlaws announcement.

UPDATE #2: With the addition of the Nashville Outlaws, the Prospect League is now up to 15 teams.  Because of this, they have decided to break the league up into three divisions.  For information on how the divisions will be aligned, please visit Prospect League To Go With Three Divisions.

What would happen if you put all of the players who play summer college league baseball together in one bucket?  Who would rise to the top?  Who would come out the “best of the best?”  That was the question we asked ourselves when we started compiling the statistics for every player in every summer college baseball league. 

We knew that putting together all of the statistics wouldn’t be easy, but we had no idea of the challenges we would face.  First, not all leagues report their statistics.  And among the leagues that do report their statistics, they all report them slightly differently. 

Then there’s the problem of how to evaluate the statistics we were putting together.  One league may have better pitching while another league may be known for hitting.  Some leagues play on finely manicured fields while others play on…, let’s call them less than perfect fields.  And the length of each league’s schedule is different.  It’s impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison, but we were determined to get as close as possible.

To make the chore a little more difficult, we realized at the last minute that we had failed to save nearly a thousand player stats when we first compiled the list, meaning that we had to stay up all night the night before the announcement of the SCL Player of the Year award, re-enter all of the data, and re-evaluate the players in order to pick the final winner.

In the end, we came up with a list of finalists to make the evaluating more manageable.  The finalists are (in alphabetical order):

Taylor Ard (Corvalis Knights/West Coast League)

Tyler Bullock (Richmond RiverRats/Prospect League)

Rob Brantly (La Crosse Loggers/Northwoods League)

Phil Cerreto (Martinsville Mustangs/Coastal Plain League)

Jacob Carlson (Waikiki Surfers/Hawaii Collegiate Baseball League)

Todd Cunningham (Falmouth Commodores/Cape Cod Baseball League)

Konstantine Diamaduros (Forest City Owls/Coastal Plain League)

Ken Gregory (Jersey Pilots/Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League)

Peter Greskoff (Riverhead Tomcats/Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League)

Drew Heid (Alaska Glacier Pilots/Alaska Baseball League)

Kyle Jones (Conejo Oaks/California Collegiate League)

Chris Lewis (Battle Creek Bombers/Northwoods League)

Kyle Roller (Bourne Braves/Cape Cod Baseball League)

Jarrod Parks (Bethesda Big Train/Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League)

Ryan Strausborger (Great Lakes Mariners/Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League)

Kolbran Vitek (Lake Erie Monarchs/Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League)

Joe Weik (SLO Rattlers/California Collegiate League)

And the winners are…

The SummerCollegeLeagues.com Co-Players of the Year are Peter Greskoff of the Riverhead Tomcats (Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League) and Drew Heid of the Alaska Glacier Pilots (Alaska Baseball League).

Greskoff posted a batting average of .397, an on-base percentage of .510, and a slugging percentage of .760 in 121 at-bats in the Atlantic Coast Baseball League.  He also hit 14 doubles, 10 homeruns, scored 28 runs, drove in 37 runs, and stole two bases.  Greskoff was named the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League co-MVP (along with Ken Gregory of the Jersey Pilots). 

Greskoff, a 6’3” 222 pound junior first baseman at Brown University, led all summer college league players in slugging percentage (.760).  He was also in the top ten for batting average (7th), on-base percentage (4th), and homeruns (tied for 9th).

Heid is currently a senior at Gonzaga University.  During the 2009 Alaska Baseball League season, the 5’ 9” 170 pound outfielder posted a batting average of .427, an on-base percentage of .495, and a slugging percentage of .614 In 171 at-bats.  He hit 18 doubles (tying an ABL record), a triple, four homeruns, had 31 RBI, scored 41 runs, and stole 11 bases.  Heid was given the Alaska Baseball League’s Kosinski (MVP) Award.

Heid led all summer college baseball league players in batting average (.427).  He was also in the top ten of all players for on-base percentage (7th), slugging percentage (tied for 8th), and doubles (5th).  

Greskoff and Heid beat out a field of some the finest college baseball players in the country.  Congratulations to both Peter Greskoff and Drew Heid, the SCL Co-Players of the Year for 2009.

The new franchise in Rockford will play its home games at historic Marinelli Field.  Stefani will serve as the team’s first general manager.  One of his first orders of business will be to oversee the “name the team” contest that the franchise will be running.  He’ll also be heading up efforts to hire a manager and recruit players for the 2010 season.

The Great Plains Baseball League anticpates having four teams for its inaugural season.  The teams will play a 54-game schedule beginning Memorial Day weekend 2010.  Other teams and locations will be announced soon.

More information can be found on the website for the new Rockford team.  News coverage of the announcement can be found on the WTVO website.

Florida Collegiate Summer League

“Find a need and fill it.” 

–Ruth Stafford Peale

Sara Whiting looked around Central Florida in 2003 and saw a need.  Her son was playing baseball at Duke University at the time and his coaches wanted him to play summer college league baseball in Maryland the next summer.  Being a good Mom and not wanting her son to be away if he didn’t have to, Sara did some checking to find out if there was a summer college league operating in Central Florida.  She found out there wasn’t.

That seemed odd to Sara.  After all, Central Florida is home to some of the best baseball talent in the country.  The area also boasts some excellent baseball facilities that sit empty for a good part of the summer.  Central Florida seemed like a natural area to host a summer college baseball league.  So Sara decided to fill the need.

Sara began contacting people in the baseball community around Central Florida to gather information and to ask for their input.  One of those people was Coach Sal Lombardo, Sara’s son’s former travel league coach and a well known baseball figure in the area.  He knew about some people in the area who were interested in starting a league and he put Sara in touch with them.

From the beginning, Sara wanted a league that was player-centric, meaning that everything done by the league is done to benefit the player.  She wanted the players to have a great experience and to continue developing their talents.  To accomplish this goal, Sara looked to the Cape Cod Baseball League for inspiration. 

With these goals in mind, Sara set up the league as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.  She wanted to make sure that the players needs always came before profits.  She also wanted to make sure that the league and its teams were always giving back to the communities in which they operate.

“Don’t give up.  Don’t ever give up.

                –Jim Valvano

Heading into the summer of 2004, the Florida Collegiate Summer League (FCSL) had a commitment for four teams.  The Whitings would own the Sanford River Rats and the league would have other individually owned and operated teams in Winter Park, Daytona, and Orlando.  Unfortunately, for financial reasons, all three of the other teams folded before the first pitch was thrown.  Sara was left with a one-team league.

Rather than throw in the towel, Sara decided to have the league own and operate all four teams.  This was a lot more work than was originally anticipated, but by the summer of 2004, everything was in place.  First pitch occurred in June 2004 and the league has been off and running ever since.

The years have seen some changes.  For instance, the league now only runs one team; the Sanford River Rats.  There are no longer teams in Orlando or Daytona, but the team in Winter Park is still in place, and the league has added teams in Leesburg, Clermont and DeLand.  With the exception of Sanford, all of the teams are individually owned and operated.

“If you build it, (they) will come.”

                –from the movie Field of Dreams

The league plays a 44 game schedule and all games start at 7:00 pm to allow the players to attend classes during the day (if they choose to take summer classes).  Because of the distance between the communities in the league, players rarely, if ever, have to stay overnight while out-of-town.  This also cuts down on expenses for the teams. 

FCSL games are run similarly to minor league games, with promotional activities, fan competitions, and community nights.  Entertaining the fans and making the evening a special experience for them is an important goal for the league. 

A special treat for the players is that the end-of-the-year championship game is held at Tropicana Field in Tampa.  Tropicana is the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.  In addition to being a great venue, playing at Tropicana gives the players a feel for what it’s like to play in the big leagues.

The success of the league is evidenced by the fact that two well known former MLB players are now coaches in the FCSL.  Davey Johnson coached the DeLand Sun this past summer after leading Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.  Frank “Sweet Music” Viola coached the Leesburg Lightning to the league championship.  Both men served as advisors to the league before being hired to coach their respective teams.

In the future, the FCSL would like to expand to bring their special brand of baseball to other communities in Central Florida.  But even more than expanding, the FCSL is interested in remaining one of the strongest summer college baseball leagues in the country and to continue to attract top notch college baseball talent and high quality coaches.  After all, that was Sara Whiting’s vision when she started the FCSL and it remains the league’s driving force today.

Florida Collegiate Summer League

Team (Home Field)

Clermont Mavericks (East Ridge HS – Clermont, FL)

DeLand Suns (Conrad Park – DeLand, FL)

Leesburg Lightning (Pat Thomas Stadium – Leesburg, FL)

Sanford River Rats (Sanford Memorial Stadium – Sanford, FL)

Winter Park Diamond Dawgs (Alfond Stadium at Harper-Shepherd Field – Winter Park, FL)