Talkin’ Baseball: Authors, Students, Coaches Discuss The Game's Life Lessons

Jim Collins, author of The Last Best League, speaks to Sandwich High School students in the school’s library about his book. Mr. Collins’s chronicle of the 2002 Chatham A’s and its players’ struggles to stand out above the competition was summer reading for all Sandwich High School students this year. Photographs by DON PARKINSON/ENTERPRISE

SANDWICH- Books and baseball, two forms of entertainment known for their power to bring communities together, did just that on Tuesday afternoon at Sandwich High School.
Sandwich High School students filled the school library to listen to a panel of writers, coaches, and fellow students discuss America’s pastime on Cape Cod.
The panel’s featured speaker was Jim Collins, author of The Last Best League: One Summer, One Season, One Dream. Mr. Collins’s book, a chronicle of the 2002 Chatham A’s baseball season, was this past summer’s reading assignment for every student in the high school.
The panel also featured the Cape Cod Baseball League’s commissioner and former Bourne Braves manager Bob Stead, Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox Coach Bob Haff, and Dan Crowley, the sports editor for The Enterprise and author of Baseball on Cape Cod.
Students Christopher Gallagher and Nikki Cannavo, both of whom interned at the Cape League over the summer, also volunteered for the panel.
The primary topic of conversation on Tuesday afternoon was Mr. Collins’s book, which he described as being only ostensibly about baseball.
He told the students who gathered in the library that the book could have essentially taken place anywhere young people could be found testing their limitations and pursuing a dream, such as a college campus.

Sandwich High School senior Haley Dunn asks Jim Collins a question on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Collins said he was excited to be able to talk to a room full of students who were already familiar with his book.

Mr. Collins, who had played the game himself for Dartmouth College, said he chose to focus on the Cape League because of its status as one of the major scouting leagues for pro talent.
“If you are a baseball player and you want to know where you stand, the Cape Cod Baseball League is probably the best place to find out,” he said.
Mr. Collins said that his book is not a history of the league, but rather a representative story of young people struggling with their own limitations.
For many of the young top-flight baseball prospects, the Cape League would be their first encounter with failure.
As an author, Mr. Collins said his challenge was to capture the emotional battles of those young male athletes, a demographic he described as “one of the least reflective group of people I’ve ever come across.”
Though Sandwich has no Cape Cod Baseball League team of its own, the cover of The Last Best League is a night shot of Sandwich High School’s baseball field.
Mr. Collins said the cover of the book projected a dreamlike essence well suited to a book about young people looking to live out dreams of their own.
“You should be proud to a have a field of dreams of your own,” Mr. Collins said.
Despite not having a team of its own, Sandwich has played a key role in the development of the sport on the peninsula.

Enterprise Sports Editor Dan Crowley, author of Baseball on Cape Cod, talked to Sandwich High School students about just that on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Crowley said he had seen many future baseball greats pass through the Cape League during his time as an Enterprise sports editor.

Mr. Crowley, whose own book is a pictorial history of America’s pastime on Cape Cod, told students that the Nichol’s Baseball Club, the Cape’s first official team, was formed in Sandwich.
Mr. Crowley told the students that from its humble beginnings with the Nichol’s Baseball Club in 1865, the Cape had come to be the home of the best amateur baseball leagues in the country.
He noted that the 2004 World Series Championship team featured five Cape League alumni in its infield, and that the man who had scored the winning run for the Red Sox Monday night, Jason Bay, had once worn the uniform of the Chatham A’s.
“Everyone wants to come here if they’re looking for a career in Major League Baseball,” Mr. Crowley said. “They come here because of the exposure that the league provides.”

Sandwich High School junior Chris Gallagher spoke to his schoolmates about his experiences with the Cape league. Chris has been both a bat boy and an intern for the Bourne Braves.

But not all who make it to the Cape League make that jump to pro ball. For some, in fact, it is where they discover that their dream was not meant to come true.
Mr. Stead, who had coached in the Cape League before becoming commissioner, told the students that he has seen a lot of players come and go, some of whom seemed destined for success, but who never achieved it.
That’s baseball. That’s life.
“Baseball is a game of failure; it is not a game of success,” he said. “The best hitters fail 70 percent of time.”
Mr. Stead said that players who most often went on to success in the big leagues were the ones who were able to stay committed in the face of failure.
Recent Red Sox addition Mark Kotsay, whom Mr. Stead coached, was one such athlete who had come to the Cape League with high expectations, only to struggle initially.
“He had been Mr. Superstar since fourth grade,” Mr. Stead said. However, Mr. Kotsay failed to bat over .270 in his first season on the Cape League. He would bounce back, eventually earning a Major League contract with the Oakland Athletics.
“I think he learned a lot about himself, and I think a lot of you will learn a lot about yourself in the coming years, too,” Mr. Stead said.
Deborah S. O’Brien, the school’s librarian, said she was pleased by the conversation that the program encouraged.
 For the last two years Sandwich High School students have only been required to read one summer reading selection. Last year, they were assigned The Flame Keepers, by East Sandwich author Ned Handy.
The purpose, Ms. O’Brien said, is “to create a community of readers,” and to promote conversation among the student body.

Sandwich High School’s Fenton Field adorns the cover of Jim Collin’s The Last Best League.

Ms. O’Brien said the school chose The Last Best League as its summer reading selection because of its appeal to a broad range of readers. “It was something that everyone could try,” she said. “You’re never going to find a book that everyone would like, but we tried to find a book that would appeal to the most people.”
Leading up the program on Tuesday, that community of readers appeared to be developing, Ms. O’Brien said.
“Everybody was talking about the book the whole week leading up to this,” she said. “Every teacher in the school had an assignment related to the book.”
Ms. O’Brien said she also hoped that through promoting conversation about The Last Best League, the summer reading program would show students that there was no wrong way to interpret a book.
“I think it shows that books are meaningful and that people have different ways of looking at books, and that there’s no right or wrong way.”