"Feature Story: Where the Stars of Tomorrow Shine Tonight"
A look at the historic Cape Cod Baseball League - featuring an interview with Director of Public Relations Michael Lane
When I was in college I was fortunate to serve as an intern one summer for the La Crosse Loggers, a member of the Northwoods League based in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The Northwoods League is a collegiate summer baseball league, the same type of league the Savannah Bananas played in when they started, and it brings in college students from all over the country and gives them a place to play during the summer.
The goal is to continue playing during their college offseason and to showcase their talents to a new crowd of fans and big league scouts. The Loggers have been fortunate to have some great players on their rosters over the years, including future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer and seven-time All-Star Chris Sale.
Players such as Scherzer and Sale who are successful in the Northwoods League hope to get the chance to play in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) as they continue their march to professional baseball. The CCBL is known as the premier college summer league in the nation and is tucked away in a slice of New England Americana known as Cape Cod.
The league is held in particularly high regard in the baseball community due in part to the expansive catalogue of stars that have come through the league. CCBL alumni include legends such as Frank Thomas, Thurman Munson, Ron Darling, and Nomar Garciaparra, and current stars such as Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso, Adley Rutschman, and Aaron Judge.
The league was originally founded in 1923, but history shows that local baseball teams from this area have been competing against each other long that time, and even as far back as prior to the the Civil War.
There is a great Society of Baseball Research article that breaks this history down further and is the source for much of the historical information I am summarizing.
The first newspaper article that discusses a game of baseball is from 1857, more than 160 years ago, and from a time so long ago that Abraham Lincoln had not even served as president yet. The President at the time was James Buchanan, Lincoln’s direct predecessor (Lincoln became President in 1861).
The July 7, 1857 issue of the Barnstable Patriot describes a recent baseball game that had been played on July 4th: “The Fourth was celebrated at Falmouth by a game of base ball, in which some of the principal men of that place participated.”
The earliest formed team dates back to June 1866, when the Nichols Base Ball Club from the town of Sandwich was gathered together. Apparently this team had trouble finding a place to play after the town’s farmers refused to rent out their land for a game and the only person to allow the team to use their land was a retired sea captain with the last name of Nichols. They immortalized him for his kindness by naming the team after him.
Other newspaper accounts from the time describe an 1867 contest between the Cummaquid Club of Barnstable and the Mattakeesetts of Yarmouth that was played during the annual cattle show and fair. Barnstable prevailed with a score of 30-13 in a game that must have been very looonnnnng - present day pitch clock be damned. If you are wondering how the teams got their names, both the Cummaquid and Mattakeesett were Native American tribes that lived in the area. The Mattakeesett Massachuset Tribe were actually the first people that the English encountered when arriving in America in 1620.
By the 1880s, the number of baseball teams continued to grow and the local Cape teams began to play other competition from throughout the state of Massachusetts. Baseball in the area was further legitimized when semiprofessional leagues were formed during the early 20th century.
These efforts were finally made official in 1923, when the Cape Cod Baseball League was founded with its four original teams: Chatham, Falmouth, Hyannis and Osterville. The teams were made up of semi-pro and college players. Variations of this league then ebbed and flowed over the next four decades before a landmark decision cemented the future of what became today’s modern CCBL.
In 1963, the NCAA sanctioned the use of its players and the league officially became a college-level summer league, rather than having teams filled with enthusiastic locals and/or semi-professionals take the field. There are currently 10 teams total, and as expected with this locale, many of the teams’ names center around a nautical theme: Anglers, Mariners, Whitecaps, and Harbor Hawks.
The league is also the setting for the 2001 cinematic masterpiece Summer Catch, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jessica Biel. In Summer Catch, Prinze’s character, Ryan Dunne, is a pitcher who plays for the Chatham A’s (now known as the Chatham Anglers).
During the conclusion of the movie, Dunne is pitching the game of his life and has a no-hitter going in the 9th inning. However, in a baffling decision for any serious baseball player, he decides to leave the game (again he’s in the midst of a no-hitter!!) to chase down Jessica Biel’s character, Tenley, before she leaves on a flight to San Francisco.
What has always baffled me about this movie is, and even giving him the benefit of the doubt by saying in 2001 he may not have had a cell phone, if the game was in the ninth inning - couldn’t he have simply finished pitching the game? It was in the ninth inning and would have literally been over in another few minutes. Then couldn’t he have called her right after the game was done?
But I digress - the point I am trying to illustrate with that questionable plot device is that the movie is very clearly a fictional story, so what does the real life league look like?
Here is a 60 Minutes clip that illustrates the allure of the league:
The season begins in mid-June and the schedule includes 44 regular season games and then a postseason. Everything wraps up in August before players have to go back to school in the fall.
The league operates as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization and, surprisingly, uses mostly volunteers in its day-to-day operations. However, a league of this caliber and with this rich history also needs to have great people in charge to continue its success. One of those people vital to the league’s success is Michael Lane, who in his early twenties, is already in his second full season as the Director of Public Relations.
Instead of newspapers such as the Barnstable Patriot reporting the latest Cape Cod baseball happenings, social media is now the main communication channel used to tell the story of the league in 2023.
And it’s Lane’s job to harness the power of social media to continue building upon the rich tradition of baseball in the area, as well as distribute the league’s news and messaging to fans around the world.
In the midst of his preparations for Opening Day 2023 (June 10), Lane graciously spent spent some time with the Relief Pickle talking about his background, his day-to-day responsibilities with the CCBL, and the role that social media plays in sports today.
Lane is originally from New Jersey and grew up a Mets fan, but now lives in Brookline, MA. He frequents Red Sox games these days, but is still a Mets fan at heart (coincidentally, this is the second straight NY Mets fan that we have featured, the first being the Young Professor).
Like many baseball fans, when he was a kid, he dreamed of playing professional baseball. And like many kids do, Lane learned a hard truth when in high school he realized a career working in sports, rather than playing sports, was more logical. He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted do, but knew he wanted to work in baseball and found himself interested in media and public relations.
After graduating high school, Lane attended Hofstra University in New York, and as a freshman began to write game recaps for the campus newspaper, the Hofstra Chronicle.
Lane said in this day of age with social media, websites, blogs, and people having their own YouTube channels and podcasts, there are a lot of avenues to choose if you are interested in pursuing a career in media or sports. Even if you can’t find the perfect role, just start doing something. As Lane said, “It’s not easy to get a career started, but there’s not excuse not to.”
“Find what works for you. People try to replicate what others do, but you need to find what works for you. What are you really good at? Once you figure out what your gift or skill is, work every day to improve it one percent and keep grinding.”
He said the student newspaper was a great place to get his start and it taught him valuable real world experience, as well as other lessons that he still carries with him to this day, such as the importance of attention to detail.
On one Friday night during his freshman year he was working on a story that he quickly completed and submitted, and went on his way. The next day he heard the unfortunate news from his editor that the story was not publishable in its current state. It turns out that Lane had skipped the all-important step of proofreading the article and hadn’t done the amount of editing that was needed. Because of this, he said he now proofreads everything he does three times.
It was also during this time in college that he got his start working in social media, with the men’s baseball and basketball teams. Then during the fall semester of his sophomore year, he had a social media internship with Barstool Sports’ baseball podcast “Starting 9”. This experience taught him the intricacies of social media and also turned out to be a fun time as it occurred during the Red Sox most recent World Series title run.
The following summer his Cape Cod League journey began when he started as a PR intern with the league. He worked with a small team of interns to line up interviews and write press clippings. Lane said he did his best to work hard and to leave his mark, and indeed he did leave his mark - as the next summer he was hired again to work for the league as a social media intern. However, the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the season.
Lane then graduated from college in December 2020 and began looking for jobs. He received a full time job offer in New York City and was mulling his options when the Cape Cod League called. They had some news for him - the director of PR for the league was opening up at the end of year. He decided to accept the offer because it was a dream come true to work full time for the CCBL. In 2021 he was a social media intern during the season, but knew he would be transitioning to the full time job at the end of the year, so he took on sort of a hybrid role.
Then in January 2022, it was official - Lane was the director of PR for the Cape Cod Baseball League. It’s obvious that Lane has risen quickly in his career at a young age, so I asked him if he had any advice for someone starting off in the industry and he provided some sage wisdom that could apply to anyone at any stage in their career:
“Treat everyone the same, regardless if they are the 60-year-old Senior VP of Communications for the Red Sox or if they are an 18-year-old intern, you never know you will connect you to a new network of opportunity. Regardless of someone’s age, treat everyone the same and treat people with respect.”
Lane’s job responsibilities vary depending on the time of year. During the offseason, planning for the upcoming season is the priority, and they work on mapping out everything they want to accomplish. He also oversees the league’s website and content calendar, and handles all of the incoming media requests. In addition, Lane does other traditional public relations work such as generating media pitches and press releases.
He also manages the league’s social media accounts, a process which continues to evolve each season. When he started as an intern most of the work was done using Twitter, but now TikTok has exploded in recent years. This year they are focusing their efforts on Instagram and growing their presence there. He said most of the players have Instagram, but not only about 60% of the players have Twitter. Facebook is also still used by the league. Lane said you need to always be on top of the latest trends and know what is important to your team.
As you would expect, Lane said the “work goes up tenfold” during the season. There are a lot more eyeballs watching and paying attention to the league. He is kept busy managing all of the media outreach and media inquiries that come in and he also oversees a team of 30 interns. The interns do most of the day-to-day management of the league’s social media accounts, but each of the league’s ten teams have their own social accounts so it is imperative the communication flows both ways. Lane works with the interns to make sure they understand their assignments and to ensure they produce good content. The overall goal is to showcase the biggest stories across the league and to capitalize on the player’s personalities.
When Lane started in 2019, he said that players would begrudgingly participate in videos or social media content creation, but now the players love the attention and want to be a part of it. The players have been around social media most of their lives and realize they can have greater individual exposure by participating in the league’s videos or TikToks. It also benefits the league because they can tap into the players’ existing followers and grow their audience footprint.
Lane said that teams and leagues need to utilize and embrace social media, because the days of advertising in other methods, such as print media and television/radio broadcasts is decreasing. Social media allows teams to create an active, exciting brand and tap into new demographics by showing people new things everyday. A fan that lives somewhere else in the country may see something fun and it makes them want to be a part of it. Maybe then they plan a trip to the game and become a more dedicated fan because of a post they saw.
And if you are ever interested in attending a Cape Cod league game yourself, there’s a unique experience ahead that you cannot get anywhere else. Lane said, “It’s hard to put into words how beautiful it is. When you go for the first time, you will understand. It truly feels special.”
First of all, there’s a good chance you’ll be watching a future MLB star. Four of the past five number #1 MLB draft picks played in the Cape Cod League, and on average about 120 to 140 players are taken in the draft each year. Lane recognizes the impact the league has on Major League Baseball when he says, “the Cape Cod League is Americana. It’s where the stars of tomorrow shine tonight.”
Another benefit of attending a Cape Cod League game is that the fans are much closer to the action as the games are played on high school fields. You can’t get that up close and personal at a Major League Baseball game. No matter if the player is a star from a top Division I school or a small local college, they all are playing on the same field that is accessible to fans. Kids can even go on to the field after every game.
Another remarkable aspect is that the players stay with host families during the time they play for the league. Many times this starts a lasting relationship between the player and the family. They end up keeping it touch and the family watches the player’s career from afar even as they sometimes ascend to the major leagues.
Toward the end of our conversation I asked Lane what his favorite memory has been thus far in his career and he said there are two.
Last year, after the last out of the championship game, he had a realization that he did it - he had finished his first full year in his dream job as the director of PR for the Cape Cod Baseball League (editor’s note: which is no small task!) And after working all summer with his team of interns, he was able to see them grow professionally. He was able to see the results of everyone’s hard work and everyone was happy with it.
The second moment was the first game back on opening day of the 2021 season when they set an all-time opening day attendance record. Kids were running around and playing catch and being back at the ballpark felt like a return to normalcy.
Let’s hope the upcoming summer goes just as well for Lane and his team as they embark on another great season of baseball.
Cape Cod League Social Media Channels:
