In the sport of baseball, there have been very few leagues outside the MLB that have the history of the Cape Cod Baseball League. The popular summer league has been officially around for nearly 100 years and has become the premier collegiate summer league in the United States. Massachusetts’s Cape Cod Baseball League is a hub for MLB prospects. Fanduel Massachusetts promo code will keep you covered as you watch former Cape Cod prospects shine in the MLB.

Every summer, the towns of Cape Cod host some of the best collegiate baseball players in the country, as they look to show Major League Baseball scouts that they’re able to perform not only against some of the best talents of their age but also with a wooden bat. With NCAA baseball playing with aluminum bats, the Cape Cod league as well as other summer leagues serve as valuable experience, especially for hitters for collegiate ballplayers to use wooden bats and show their hitting abilities when using wooden bats and not just aluminum. For pitchers, it simply offers an opportunity to get additional work in and showcase their own abilities against some of the country’s elite hitters.

The CCBL begins every year in mid-June with each of the 10 teams playing 44 games from mid-June through mid-August. The season features an All-Star Game towards the end of the regular season as well as an eight-team playoff which ultimately ends with the winner taking home the Arnold Mycock Trophy. Arnold MyCock was a beloved figure in Cape Cod, serving as the general manager of the Cotuit Kettleers for over 40 years among many other contributions to the game, the league, and the Cape Cod area.

In 2022, the Bourne Braves won the Cape League Championship for the first time in 13 years.

Nearly 2,000 players who have played in the Cape Cod League have gone on to play in the major leagues including some of the game’s biggest stars, especially over the last 20 years. Names that have played in the league include Chase Utley, Jeff Kent, Lance Berkman, Aaron Judge, Ryan Braun, Jeff Bagwell, Evan Longaria, Tim Lincecum, Chris Sale, and Ben Sheets among many others.

In 2000, the league also began its own hall of fame to immortalize those who made their presence known in the league. Members of that Hall of Fame include Mo Vaughn, Frank Thomas, Thurman Munson, Darin Erstad, Chuck Knoblacuh, Robin Ventura, Mike Lowell, and Paul O’Neill. Five alumni of the Cape Cod league would go onto be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as well in Pie Traynor, Carlton Fisk, Frank Thomas, Craig Biggio, and Jeff Bagwell.

Two of the biggest stars, however, to ever play in the Cape Cod league and two additional members of the Cape Cod Hall of Fame are a pair of former Boston Red Sox greats Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Varitek.

Garciaparra a CCBL Hall of Famer, was a member of the Orleans Cardinals during the 1993 season, where he helped lead the Cardinals to the Cape Cod League championship. During his 1993 season, Garciappar hit .321 with one home run, 18 RBI, over the course of the summer season. He would go on to have a long career in the MLB playing in the majors from 1996 through 2009. He’s best remembered as part of the Red Sox where he played from 1996 through the 2004 trade deadline when he was traded to the Chicago Cubs months before the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years.

He would spend the rest of the 2004 season as well as the 2005 season with the Cubs before spending three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and one season with the Oakland Athletics. For his career, he hit .313 with 229 home runs and 936 RBI while being a six-time All-Star selection, the 1997 American League Rookie of the Year, and a two-time American League batting champion. He was also inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2014.

Varitek, on the other hand, has an argument about being the greatest Cape Cod League player ever. Commonly referred to around Boston as “The Captain”, Varitek played in Cape Cod during the summers of 1991 and 1993 while playing for Team USA in the summer of 1992. In that 1993 season, Varitek played for the Hyannis Mets, hitting .371 and winning the league’s MVP award in the process. He would go on to make his MLB debut in 1997 and would play 15 seasons for the Boston Red Sox from 1997 through 2011. In those 15 seasons, he was a .256 hitter with 193 home runs and 757 RBI while being a three-time All-Star and helping lead the Red Sox to two World Series titles.