After earning a playoff berth by securing a third-place finish in the East Division on the final day of the regular season, the Orleans Firebirds were ousted from the playoffs following a 2-0 series sweep against the second-seeded Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Orleans suffered a season-ending 8-4 loss to Y-D on Friday at Eldredge Park after the teams played the final inning of the first game of the series earlier i...

BREWSTER – The storyline stuck with the Orleans Firebirds during the last week of the regular season. The team controlled its own destiny, needing just one win in its final three games to separate itself from Chatham and secure the fourth and final spot in the East Division playoffs. After suffering a 5-0 loss to defending champion Brewster on Sunday, Orleans nearly punched its postseason ticket with an imp...

WAREHAM – Sixteen home runs in two minutes. That is how Chatham Anglers outfielder Lyle Miller-Green opened Saturday’s festivities at the Cape League’s first All-Star game since 2019, which saw the East top the West 4-1 at Wareham's Spillane Field. Those 16 bombs cemented Miller-Green’s spot in the Home Run Derby finals and pushed him past his first-round opponent Carson Jones, an outfielder for the Bourne Bra...

For the first time since 2019, the Cape Cod Baseball League will hold an All-Star Game this weekend. Cape League fans from the Lower Cape will be plenty familiar with the East Division roster, as a combined 21 of the 28 players on the team hail from the Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers, Harwich Mariners and Orleans Firebirds. The defending champion Whitecaps and the Mariners each had six players named to...

ORLEANS – Before every Orleans Firebirds home game, the team’s players show up hours early for batting practice and warm-ups. Although the rest of the field is usually empty before fans begin to roll in, there is another group of people who show up at the same time as the players — the Firebirds’ interns. And, just like the players, the interns get right to work. The Cape Cod Baseball League is universally ...

BOURNE – Despite experiencing success the past two springs while pitching at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, AJ Blubaugh still felt like he had something to prove when he joined the Orleans Firebirds. “Even from a young age, I’ve always had a little chip on my shoulder,” said Blubaugh, a 6-foot-3 righty from Belleville, Ohio. “I grew up undersized, so even getting the opportunity to play at Milwaukee wa...

CHATHAM – The Ole Miss Rebels and Oklahoma Sooners combined for 19 runs scored during their two-game NCAA College World Series, with the Rebels claiming the national title after outscoring the Sooners 14-5 during the series. That run explosion – a commonality in college baseball – is uncommon in the Cape League while the college players used to aluminum bats adjust to using wooden bats. While the best playe...

ORLEANS – Travis Honeyman had heard a lot about Cape Cod. In fact, there were times the Long Island native wondered if his Boston College teammates would ever pipe down about the Cape. “I had never been to the Cape in my entire life but all of my teammates from BC that are from Massachusetts would swear by it,” said Honeyman, an outfielder from Massapequa, N.Y. “They’d say it was the best place ever and all...

ORLEANS – Summer family trips to Cape Cod are a staple for many Massachusetts families. Being able to enjoy the beach, some baseball or mini golf make it a great place for a vacation getaway. Three Orleans Firebirds pitchers are getting the chance to relive those Cape memories, but this time as a part of a Cape League team. Orleans’ pitching trio of Alex Amalfi, Sam Conte and Ben Shields, who hail from Ashland...

ORLEANS – Folding chairs lining Eldredge Park’s grassy hillside hours before the first pitch was thrown marked the first sign of Cape League baseball’s return to Orleans. The Firebirds faithful that arrived early were rewarded, as the team jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead against the visiting Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in the first inning of Sunday’s season opener. Although the Firebirds and Red Sox ultimately f...

The four Lower Cape-based Cape Cod Baseball League teams are ramping up preseason preparations ahead of the league’s full slate of Opening Day games set for June 12. Although team officials from Chatham, Harwich, Orleans and Brewster have different to-do lists to accomplish before the first pitches are thrown, the four East Division rivals are all on the same page about one thing: they’re excited for another s...

They came. They got vaccinated. They played. This summer the Cape Cod Baseball League faced a challenge it hadn’t seen since World War II: It had to come back and play a season following a summer without baseball. The Cape’s year-round residents and summer tourists packed the ballparks and the CCBL set new attendance records all summer long, beginning in June when the league’s five opening day crowds drew 1...

ORLEANS – The surprise was put to the test early in the morning when Orleans Firebirds manager Kelly Nicholson sent his longtime friend and former player-turned-assistant coach Chris Beck a text message asking him if he was awake and available to chat. “I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I have kids, I’m awake,’” Beck recalled of the text exchange, which came right around 10 a.m. on June 28. “He thought it was 7 o’clock...

ORLEANS – The real work behind a home run chase happens hours before the first pitch. It happens outside of the batter’s box, away from the ballpark and long before any spectators arrive to the field. For Orleans sluggers Chase DeLauter and Tyler Locklear, two of the Cape League’s fiercest power hitters, the work begins in the weight room at Nauset Fit Co., where the duo meets Firebirds’ strength and condition...

COTUIT – Slowly, John DeGirolamo rubs a fresh baseball in the palms of his mud-stained hands. “This is Lena Blackburne’s rubbing mud,” he says. “It comes from a top-secret location on the shores of the Delaware River.” DeGirolamo points out that this particular mud — commonly used to rub new baseballs — was featured on Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs a number of years ago. He remembers the show’s host, Mike ...

It’s all starting to click for the Harwich Mariners. After playing .500 baseball for almost the entire first half of the season, the Cape Cod Baseball League’s 2019 runner-up is hitting its stride at the right time. The Mariners extended their unbeaten streak to seven consecutive games and took sole possession of second place in the East Division standings following a 2-2 tie against Yarmouth-Dennis on Monday....