Cape Cod League Baseball

Although not what you would normally expect from me being an outdoor blog, I'd like to tell you a little about one of the "treasures" we have in our back yard that very few people know about.

The Cape Cod Baseball League is a summer league for college players. Games are played at different town fields throughout the Cape. If you've ever stuck through NESN during a Red Sox rain delay, you have probably seen the documentary about the league.

The Cape Cod League reminds me about everything that is right and pure about baseball. It brings you back to the stories Ray Kinsella ( Kevin Costner ) talks about in Field of Dreams. Although these are college all stars who have no doubt been told throughout there life how much talent they have from there AAU coaches and scouts, when you come down to it they are still 19-20 year old kids with the dream of playing major league baseball. Someday many of the kids in the summer league will be millionaires but for now, they are the more talent version of millions of us with the same dream as kids.

For those of you wondering, it is free to go to these games. When you walk in, there is a table with rosters and a donation can. Drop in a couple dollars if you want. It is great baseball. If you'd prefer to donate in a different way the concession stand has a pretty good variety and is cheap. Comparing to movie theater prices the food is less tan 1/2. Gatorade, Soda and Hot Dogs are all either $2 or under. If you find yourself a fan of the team or the league, they have a ton of clothes at the merchandise table to buy.

Here is how it works. These are the best players in the country. They come from colleges from as far away as San Diego. From many accounts, it is the best college summer league in the country. They stay with a " host family" during there time down the Cape. Some of the players become close friends with there host familys and stay in touch long after the summer is over. If you have ever saw the documentary, Jason Varitek talks about his host family, and they still keep in touch. The players are responsible for getting the field ready to play. If you arrive 1/2 an hour before the game you will see players hosing down the field, painting foul lines, running the tractor and other pre -game responsibilities.

We go to the Wareham Gatemen home games. There are a couple reasons for this. Number one and most importantly, its the closest field and the only team/ field on this side of the bridges. Not having to cross the Sagamore or Bourne Bridge means I can go down on a Friday night and not get stuck in any Cape traffic. Also, the field is really nice. It is extremely easy to get a good seat and watch the game. The games are played at Spillane Field ( directions on Wareham Gatemen website), which is only a 1/4 mile off Route 6. From North Attleboro its less than an hour drive.

Once you have been to a couple games during the season, you start to recognize names and route for players. There is usually a couple kids from New England schools too. I naturally route for these guys. The nice thing about Wareham is that is close and with little traffic. If you go to a game, you first feel like a spectator. If you go too a couple though, you might talk to a host family or talk to a player in the bullpen, you start to feel the warmth of the league.

During the game ( at least in Wareham) there is a 50/50 raffle. Besides the money, there are a lot of prizes ranging from Plimouth Plantation tickets, Papa Gino's Gift Certificate, to Paw Sox tickets. There are probably 15 prizes. The players themselves go into the stands and sell the 50/50 tickets. Its kind of cool to talk with them while buying. I have never seen a player that wasn't polite and willing to sign an autograph for a kid or get a quick picture taken with a fan.

If you go, check the schedules of the team your going to see. Wareham has a couple autograph nights a year ( usually on Sundays). After the game the players line up and you can get there autograph or a picture. They will sign anything but if you have a media guide, $3, they know the page number they are on and will sign that. One year we got Daniel Bard's (Red Sox pitcher)autograph and talked with him after he pitched a 7 inning 11 strikout game throwing over 95 mph! If you see on the schedule " scout day" that means nothing to us, there may be a few more major league scouts than normal, but the games go on the same and we the public are still invited.

Last night we went to our first game of the season. The Gatemen lost 4-0. DJ got a foul ball and probably would have gotten a couple more if he tried. We watched a great pitching performance by the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. Got some nachos and sprite and had a good time watching the game. The only negative is there can be some mosquitoes at Wareham. Its always a good idea to bring bug spray. Last night they were a little annoying, sometimes they can be bad and others their are no bugs biting at all. Its a crap shoot depending on the breeze.

Salisbury Beach and Plum Island 50 species day!!

The other night I stayed overnight at Salisbury Beach State Reservation. There is a campground right on the water. I went up on Monday and slept overnight, came home Tuesday evening. If you have never been to Salisbury Beach, I do not know if there is any beach prettier. It is right on the mouth of the Merrimack. The sand is soft and clean. There is a jetty that sticks out into the ocean a few hundred feet. On one side is the open Atlantic and the beach. On the other is the Merrimack River discharging into the open ocean.

The campground is not very private. There are very few trees and the sites are very close together. Since I only spend a little time actually at the tent, I feel the lack of privacy is a small price to pay for the scenery. The cost per night is $ 22.

On Monday morning I went birding at Plum Island before I got a campsite. Plum Island ( in Newburyport) sits on the other side of the Merrimack from Sailsbury. I got up to Plum about 10:30. I birded for 5 hours. I wanted to get to the campground by 5 pm since I had no idea when it closed and didn't actually know how long it would take to get there. Birding on the island was as usual great. I got almost 50 species and 2 more LIFE BIRDS. The island is long and skinny. There is a road that goes down the center to the southern tip. The road gives excellent access to many points on the island. There are trails into the interior going into marsh, fields and woods.

The two life birds were a Wilson's Pharalope and a Sora. I spotted the Sora on the Marsh Trail at "Hellcat" The marsh trail runs through the biggest cattail marsh I have ever seen. I saw a glimpse of it. I also taped with my camera the call. It was definitely a sora The pharalope was spotted by another guy while I was looking at some greater yellowlegs. He pointed it out to me, which I thanked him for it.

For anyone interested I am going to list all the species:

Sora, Wilson's Pharalope, Glossy Ibis, Bobolink, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Cedar Waxwing, Green Wing Teal, Gadwall, Short Billed Dowitcher, Greater Yellowlegs, Osprey, Willet, Grackle, Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow, Red Wing Blackbird, Turkey Vulture, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, Goldfinch, Robin, Cormorant, Chickadee, Semi-palimated Sandpiper, Morning Dove, Canada Geese, Towhee, Mockingbird, Kingbird, Catbird, Great Black Back Gull, Ringbilled Gull, Herring Gull, Crow, Baltimore Oriole, Mute Swan, Starling, Black Duck, Mallard, Great Blue Herron, House Sparrow, White Breasted Nuthatch, pigeon ( saw on way up)non birds were grey squirrel, chipmunk, garter snakes.

I also saw another rail fly in but could not identify what kind it was. For a total of 49 species. One more coming later...

On my way to Salisbury Beach, I stopped at a tackle shop asked a few questions and bought some bait. I planned on fishing at the mouth of the Merrimack at dusk. The bait shop owner told me dead low tide was 8:30 pm. When he told me that, I planned on fishing the river from dark until whenever. If I made it fishing late I would try the beach at high tide, after 1 am or so. I never expected to make it that long.

I never fished chunks ( mackerel) on the bottom before. I am more of an active fisherman casting eels or plugs, constantly moving and casting. Sitting on my butt waiting for a fish to hit is usually reserved for carp fishing for me. I set up at 7:30. Within minutes I had my first hit. My rod tipped bobbed up and down a couple times. I thought "man this chunk fishing is EASY!!" I set the hook but the fish was not there. I reeled in but caught on the bottom. I lost my rig and retied. This happened on 4 consecutive casts. I kept moving down the beach but could not find a place where I wouldn't hook the bottom. Finally, after my 5th retie I hooked a small striper of about 24 inches. It was pretty exciting for me for many reasons. I was happy to catch a fish at a place I've never fished. I also caught my first fish on a chunk. No matter what, at least I didn't waste my night getting " skunked".

About an hour later I caught another small striper on a chunk. The night was beautiful .The temp dropped down to the mid 50's. The moon was in so every star in the sky was out. I saw a shooting star, bright orange, that I thought was a meteor. I ended up fishing late enough to try the beach. By that point though, I was pretty exhausted. I made 5-6 casts on the beach with a plug. I gave up pretty quickly and drove to my campsite and went to bed ( after washing my hands)

The next morning after cleaning up and brushing my teeth I packed up my campsite ( 14 minutes, thank you very much) and headed out. My goal this morning was to fish the Merrimack River in Methuen for carp. Dave said he might go up and fish with me. I got to the swim at 9:30. Dave showed up about 11. Despite nice cloudy cool weather conditions the fish were just not around. Dave ended up with two. Both were much smaller then what we expect to find in this area. He beat me as I did get skunked. I still say that time goes by so much faster when you have someone to talk with if the fish aren't biting. I would have stayed till dark but I had to be home at 6:00 to meet Laurie, so I left at 4:30. Dave didn't get anymore after I left, kind of a disappointing day for both of us.

Still, after doing three fun things in two days, I can say I had a 36 hour blast. I want to get back to Salisbury again and try my luck for stripers at high tide. Birding at Plum is always great and I'm sure next time carp fishing will be better. Including my stripers, I ended up seeing 50 species on Monday so it was a good day!!

Lake Tiogue

I went fishing this afternoon at Lake Tiogue. This lake is in Coventry and is known for large carp. Hoping that it would stay cloudy all day, I went down early afternoon. The weather cooperated and stayed cloudy with only occasional sunshine. Tiogue is a trout water, so according to Rhode Island law corn can not be used. It is a dumb law but I follow it because I don't want to risk a fine.

At the lake I set up two poles with a bread/oatmeal method ball above a piece of bread for bait. I managed to first catch a 13 inch rainbow trout that I threw back.

After another hour I hooked up with a 12 pound carp. In most places this would be a decent fish, at Lake Tiogue it is officially the smallest one I have caught.

After my 2:15 daily phone call from DJ I hooked up with another fish. This one felt much bigger, after a 5 minute fight I landed an 18 pounder. My biggest carp of the year. I let her go then right before I left I caught a very spunky brightly colored bluegill. I'm not used to catching 6 inch fish on a nine foot rod and 17 pound test line. It put a smile on my face.

Poseidon's Gift

For the last week I hadn't gotten a chance to go fishing until tonight. During little league playoffs this year it is a double elimination format. This means you don't find out when your next game is until after you've won or lost because you go into a different bracket depending on the outcome.

For this week at least, trying to make plans for the evening has been impossible. I got a tip from my friend Dave that a spot we fish in Warwick ( Conimicut Point) has been red hot with keeper striped bass. My plan was to go last night but the game ended late and I wanted to get in the water by dark. I never would have made it ( I planned on fishing well after dark, but wanted to fish the twilight too.)

Today we had a game scheduled but it got rained out. It was raining really hard where I live and the forecast for the night was showers all night. Still, I couldn't stop myself. I was jonesing to fish so bad, I got in the car knowing I'd have rain and wind pelting my face. The whole ride to Warwick I was not caring about how heavy the rain was coming down, I had visions of a lot of stripers chasing a lot of bait and me having the place to myself ( who else is dumb enough to fish in that weather?)

I put my waders and raincoat on in the car when I got there so except for my face and hands I stayed reasonably dry I walked out to the point, sure enough it was empty. I started casting into the wind. About 15 minutes into my fishing two other guys got into the water. I was impressed to say the least. About 45 minutes and no hits between the three of us, the wind and rain picked up. The wind had to be at least 30 miles an hour and it started to pour. It was dark but I saw the silhouettes of the other two anglers bail out. I kept fishing. The strong wind and rain only lasted about 15 minutes. After that, the rain almost completely stopped and never got past a drizzle the rest of the night. The wind on the other hand never really slowed down, it was constant over 20 mph all night.

After the rain had stopped I got my first hit. It was a tiny bass of maybe 15 inches. Then another and another. I managed to catch 8 bass in the last two hours fishing. They were not the keepers Dave had told me about. They were all small schoolies. The largest was close to 24 inches.

The highlight of the night and Poseidon's gift was a just legal fluke. Fluke is absolutely my favorite fish to eat. I caught it about 10:30 pm on a zoom fluke. I was so happy to catch it and so afraid to loose it, I dragged it all the way to shore on the hook. I didn't want to take the chance of it slipping away as I took the hook out. I unhooked it on the beach, put it on a rope and went out and caught a few more stripers before going home at 11:35

I got my fishing fix, so hopefully I will make it through the rest of baseball season ( it ends June 13) without to much of a struggle if I can't fish. And more importantly the great god of the sea and storms rewarded my effort with a gift of fluke

Postscript- the image of Poseidon is from google images. Also sorry about the picture of the fluke on the cutting board. It doesn't do it justice, but I couldn't take a picture of it at the beach with drizzle coming down

DJ's Bunk Day

I told DJ ( my son for anyone that doesn't know) that he could take a day out of school when the weather got nice if he didn't miss any school for the last two quarters of school sick. He went to school everyday for the last few months so it was time to live up to my end of the bargain. The plan was to let him take the day out of school for a day at the Bronx Zoo. We ended up going to the zoo on a Sunday so we needed a plan B. I told him we could do anything he wanted as long as the day was under $50. Didn't matter to me how far of a drive, as long as he planned something he wanted to do.

DJ thinks with his stomach first. Instead of doing a day trip to Boston or Block Island, the first and only thing on his mind was his favorite restaurant. Becky's BBQ in Middletown,RI has the best BBQ around. DJ wasn't been there in a year or so. So instead of planning an all day adventure he was content to take the hour drive for 20 minutes worth of food ( it is amazing). I didn't give him any ideas for plans for the day. I wanted him to come up with something HE WANTED TO DO, without any suggestions of what I wanted to do. On the way down, I mentioned things we could have done, however, he kept a clear mind and continued to concentrate on smoked sparebibs. He was going to have a good day as long as his belly was full of barbaque.

Obviously I was not going to just get the food and turn right around. He tried to make at least a 1/2 day of the trip. Before we ate we went to Sachuest Point NWR and did some birding at the Third Beach marsh restoration. We saw a piping plover on a nest, glossy ibis and an American redstart (a type of warbler that looks like a mini Baltimore oriole). There were a lot of common species and we ended up with close to 30 in a couple hours.

We did get BBQ at Becky's, the downside was they were out of there mashed potatoes. We managed to consol our selves by eating an extra piece of cornbread

Connecticut River Strikeout

I went fishing with my friend Dave Pickering yesterday. We took a trip out to the Connecticut River to fish for trophy carp. The Connecticut River is known for having huge carp up to and over 30 pounds. Any fish under 15 pounds is considered a small fish for the river.

We met up with one of Dave's friend that lives in the area named Mike. He had baited up the water and got to the " swim" a couple hours before us. The fishing was extremely slow despite perfect fishing weather. It rained hard on us a couple of times and stayed cloudy most of the day. There was a fairly strong wind and the river is so wide there was a chop on the water producing white caps. The only fish caught was by Mike. It was close to 19 pounds.

Mike caught his fish as we were packing up to leave at 3 pm. Thinking our luck was going to change we set up again and fished ( unsuccessfully) for another 2 hours. We packed up for good at 5 and headed toward home.

On the way back we stopped at a spot on the Blackstone River near the MA/ RI line. He got there about 6:15 and stayed until after dark. He did quite well on the Blackstone. Between Dave and myself we got 5. The biggest one was a scrapper Dave caught about 10 pounds. We had a couple other hits so it was a very interesting 3 hours.

I would like to say that stopping at the Blackstone saved our day from being a total waste of time. The truth is the day flew by anyway. Even though we didn't have any luck on the Conn River I was shown a new spot that has huge fish ( usually ). On top of this when hanging out with a good friend time goes by really quickly anyway. During the car ride to/from the river ( about 1 1/2 hours ) Dave and I compared notes about what has worked for us striper fishing this year and what hasn't. I complained about things that bothered me about little league baseball. We got to the fishing hole in no time.

Don't get me wrong, catching the fish on the Blackstone and learning another spot just made the day that much better.

Bronx Zoo Review (and tips)

For the first time ever I along with my son DJ, his sister Amber and my good buddy Laurie went to the Bronx Zoo. From North Attleboro it is about a 3 hour 15 minute ride on days with no traffic. Since we went on Memorial Day weekend ( as opposed to a Friday morning commute) traffic was fairly light. We left home at 7 am and pulled into the parking lot before 11. Note: we missed the parking lot turn the first time because a NYPD van was blocking it, so we drove around the Bronx for about 20 minutes looking for another entrance. So there I was driving through the Bronx, a country boy with Massachusetts plates and a RED SOX bumper sticker on my Santa Fe, yeah I was a little out of place. Luckily all the Yankee fans with rabies must have been passed out from a hard night of drinking and learning how to spell there names to be up that early. I safely made it into the parking lot.

The zoo is open from 10-5 Mon-Fri and till 5:30 on weekends and holidays. We tried to be there by 10:30, but didn't want to leave home so early we would be exhausted all day and not have any fun. Adult ticket is $ 15 but if you buy the total experience ticket it goes to $ 27. The total experience includes a walk through the Congo Gorilla Forest, butterfly Garden,a bug carousel, childrens zoo, and a monorail ride through an Asian species part of the zoo. Some species included on the monorail were elephants, a tiger, and many types of deer. We chose the total experience ticket.

Choosing a day to go to the zoo can be tricky. Your choice is between going on a weekday where there will be less people at the zoo, but having to deal with NYC traffic, also taking the chance there aren't to many field trips. The other option is going on a weekend dealing with more people at the zoo, but traffic will be lighter. Also going on the weekend means not taking a day out of work/school for most people. We obviously chose the weekend and the zoo was very crowded. I think the perfect time would be a weekday in mid September when everyone is back in school.

First off the zoo is huge. I usually take about 2 1/2 hours to get through Roger Williams Zoo. Just one glance of the map will tell you that isn't going to happen. Since we didn't start when the zoo opened we did not get completely through the park in 5 hours. I do think it is possible though. If I ever go back I will have a planned map route through the zoo hitting all the animals but doing very little backtracking. The zoo is set up more like a town with intersecting roads then a loop. You can't see everything by staying on one or two paths.

The coolest thing about the zoo is that there are so many animals that I've never seen in other zoos. All zoos have elephants these days. Most have a reptile house, a bird house and the usual deers, giraffes, and zebra. The Bronx Zoo had everything you'd expect but so much more. I saw more animals for the first time today then any other zoo. Some of my favorites were GRIZZLY BEAR, and COBRA and CONGO GORILLA FOREST. There was plenty of other awesome stuff too. Lions, Tigers, and ( polar) bears. There are at least 5 places for birds including a sea bird aviary.

Here are some tips to make your trip more fun/productive if you go.

1. When we got to the parking lot we ate a early lunch of sandwiches and chips. This saved us the price of expensive zoo food.

2. If you go on a crowded day, don't expect to ride the zoo transportation, line is pretty long and its quicker if you walk.

3. The monorail through the Asian animals is nice, but the line was very long. It took about an hour of our day ( ride is about 10 minutes). I wouldn't do it again unless there wasn't a line. Although its cool to be on the monorail, it doesn't stop at the animals, so you have no time to look at them and get good pictures, it just moves down the track slowly.

4. Have food for the ride home.

5. I was told when there is a chance of rain in the forecast, there is hardly anyone at the zoo.

6. Stay hydrated.

7. Like I mentioned before, try to put a route together before you go ( you can get maps at the Bronx Zoo website). This will keep you from backtracking to much.

To sum up, the Bronx Zoo is DEFINITELY worth the trip. It is an expensive daytrip. If you count gas, food, admission, parking ($13) it was about $160. I could probably go on 6-7 normal daytrips for that. It was a once ( maybe twice) in a lifetime place to go.

Obviously "the zoo" is not part of my normal outdoors blog. The animals are in pens and not "wild". I did manage to see a wild black crowned night heron hanging around the zoo. I would not count going to the zoo as a wild experience like fishing in my canoe in the ocean or going hiking in the White Mountains, but it was a daytrip and a fun one at that.