The Wareham Gatemen are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Wareham, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Gatemen play their home games at Clem Spillane Field in Wareham.
The Gatemen most recently won the CCBL championship in 2018 when they defeated the Chatham Anglers two games to none to win the best of three championship series. The title was the eighth in team history, including back-to-back championships in 2001–2002. Since the club's inception, over 100 players have gone on to play in Major League Baseball.
History Pre-modern era
The early Cape League era (1923–1939)
In 1923, the Cape Cod Baseball League was formed and included four teams: Chatham, Falmouth, Hyannis and Osterville. This early Cape Cod League operated through the 1939 season and disbanded in 1940, due in large part to the difficulty of securing ongoing funding during the Great Depression.
Wareham was the first new team added to the league, joining for the 1927 season to bring the number of teams to five. In Wareham's inaugural 1927 season, the team was led by player-manager and CCBL Hall of Famer Danny Silva. Silva had played briefly for the Washington Senators in 1919, and after his playing days became a longtime umpire in the CCBL. In the early 1960s when a knowledgeable and universally respected figure was needed to unify the newly reorganized Cape League, Silva was chosen and served as the first commissioner of the league's modern era, a position he held from 1962 to 1968. Silva's 1927 Wareham team finished with a respectable 17–18 record, good for third among the five clubs. Wareham was forced to drop out of the league for the 1929 season due to lack of funds, then returned to the league in 1930 and remained in the league through the 1932 season.
Wareham won the Cape League championship in 1930, finishing two games ahead of Chatham to take the pennant. The town celebrated its champions in grand style with a "motor parade" through downtown Wareham led by the town band, followed by a banquet given by the town's chamber of commerce. Dignitaries including United States Representative Charles L. Gifford and Massachusetts Senator Donald W. Nicholson were on hand to pay tribute to the Wareham nine.
Wareham's player-manager in 1930 and 1931 was Georgetown University pitcher Harry Noznesky. Noznesky had played for Falmouth in 1928 and 1929, and brought several key players with him to Wareham from the 1929 pennant-winning Falmouth team, such as ex-Falmouth all-CCBL catcher Gene Connell of the University of Pennsylvania, who went on to catch for the Philadelphia Phillies. Upon leading Wareham to the 1930 Cape League title, it was noted that Noznesky "has the college connections to select the best players obtainable and is also on friendly terms with managers and officials of several big-league teams who turn over likely looking prospects to him." Another of the first Wareham players to go on to play major league baseball was pitcher Al Blanche, a Somerville, Massachusetts native who played for Wareham in 1931, and went on to play for the major league Boston Braves. 1932 Wareham twirler Emil "Bud" Roy went on to play briefly for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics.
The Upper and Lower Cape League era (1946–1962)
After a hiatus during the years of World War II, the Cape League was reconstituted in 1946. Wareham first fielded a team in the new league in 1952. In June of that year, the league's Barnstable Barons had impulsively withdrawn from the league after a disputed forfeit ruling, and the league voted to admit Wareham to replace Barnstable for the second half of the season. Wareham has been a member of the Cape League ever since.
Wareham made a deep playoff run in 1957, beginning with a first round defeat of Otis Air Force Base, two games to one in the Upper Cape playoffs. In the series, Wareham rode the stellar pitching of Tom Eccleston, who threw a two-hit shutout in Game 2, and Bruce Reed, who gave up just five hits and helped himself with a homer in the decisive Game 3 victory. The win sent Wareham to the Upper Cape finals against the heavily favored Cotuit Kettleers. Led by the hitting of brothers Bruce and Glenn Reed, Wareham routed Cotuit, 14–2, in Game 1 at Lowell Park, then with Bruce on the mound at home in Game 2, Wareham completed the sweep with a 3–0 shutout of the Kettleers. The win was Wareham's only Upper Cape Division championship of the era. Wareham went on to face the Lower Cape champion Orleans Red Sox in the Cape League finals, but Orleans prevailed in two straight.
Modern era (1963–present)
The 1960s and Wareham's "Mr. Baseball" In 1963, the CCBL was reorganized and became officially sanctioned by the NCAA. The league would no longer be characterized by "town teams" who fielded mainly Cape Cod residents, but would now be a formal collegiate league. Teams began to recruit college players and coaches from an increasingly wide geographic radius.
The league was originally composed of ten teams, which were divided into Upper Cape and Lower Cape divisions. Wareham joined Falmouth, Cotuit, Bourne and Sagamore in the Upper Cape Division. Wareham's team was skippered by Wareham's "Mr. Baseball", CCBL Hall of Famer Steve Robbins. Robbins had played baseball for Wareham High School and later in the Wareham Twilight League, and served at various times as the field manager, general manager, and league representative for the Gatemen.
Wareham qualified for the playoffs in 1963, and defeated the Bourne Canalmen in the first round series before being bounced by Cotuit. In 1965, Clem Spillane Field hosted the CCBL All-Star Game, which was won by the Upper Cape Division, 10–9.
CCBL Hall of Famer Jim Prete joined the Gatemen in 1966. Prete, a '66 graduate of Bourne High School where he was a star infielder, hit .319 for the Gatemen on the season. Prete returned to Wareham in 1967, but played for Bourne in the 1968 season, and missed the 1969 season due to injury. He returned to the Gatemen in 1970, when he had his best year, batting .336 and being named the league's MVP.
The 1970s and Wareham's first modern era title
In the early 1970s, Wareham was piloted by CCBL Hall of Famer Ed Lyons. Lyons managed four different Cape League franchises over his long career, and retired as the league's all-time winningest manager. In six years with Wareham, Lyons' teams finished atop the league in first place twice, and qualified for the playoffs four times. Lyons' 1971 Wareham team featured league MVP Joe Barkauskas and the league's Outstanding Pitcher, Bob Majczan. Wareham again boasted the league MVP in 1973 and 1974 with Steve Newell and Phil Welch, making it four years out of five that Gatemen took home the award. Newell, an outfielder from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, batted .340 and led the CCBL with 11 homers in 1973. He was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame in 2017.
CCBL Hall of Fame skipper Bill Livesey took the helm at Wareham in 1976. Livesey had previously managed Falmouth to five league titles, including four consecutively from 1968 to 1971, and he promptly brought his winning ways to Wareham. The 1976 Gatemen featured future major leaguers Joe Lefebvre and CCBL Outstanding Pro Prospect Bobby Sprowl. Wareham finished third in the league, and disposed of second place Cotuit in a two-game semi-final series sweep, putting an end to defending champ Cotuit's run of four consecutive titles.
In the best-of-five title series, the Gatemen faced first place Chatham, who had posted an impressive 30–11–1 record in the regular season. Chatham took the opener, 3–2, in ten innings, but Wareham answered in Game 2 as Bangor, Maine native Brian Butterfield came through with a key RBI to propel the Gatemen to victory and even the series. The Gatemen sent Sprowl to the mound for Game 3 and came away with a 4–3 victory, but could only manage three hits in Game 4 as Chatham shut out the Gatemen, 5–0, to knot the series again. Wareham took the exciting back-and-forth Game 5, with Sprowl coming on in relief on short rest to close out the A's and secure Wareham's first CCBL title of the modern era.
The 1980s and another championship squad
CCBL Hall of Famer John Morris starred for Wareham in 1981. The league MVP batted .410 with a .527 on-base percentage and 17 stolen bases, and set a league record with 50 runs scored. The Gatemen featured the CCBL's Outstanding Pitcher in 1983 and 1984 in Dennis Livingston, the winning pitcher of the 1983 CCBL All-Star Game at Fenway Park, and 1984 recipient Bill Cunningham. The 1984 Gatemen were skippered by a young Mike Roberts, who went on to manage Cotuit throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Behind the play of future major league all-star and World Series champion Walt Weiss, who set a CCBL record with 19 doubles on the season, Roberts led the Gatemen to the league title series where they were downed by Cotuit. In 1986, Wareham again boasted the league's Outstanding Pitcher, future major league all-star Jack Armstrong, who was the winning pitcher at the CCBL All-Star Game at Shea Stadium.
The 1988 CCBL season boasted perhaps the greatest single-season aggregation of future major league talent in league history. Manager Stan Meek's Gatemen had more than their share of the talent, and rode it to another league title. In addition to CCBL Hall of Famer John Thoden, who posted a 9–1 record and was the league's Outstanding Pitcher, Wareham featured future major league all-star infielder Chuck Knoblauch and future Boston Red Sox fan favorite and American League MVP slugger Mo Vaughn. Amid the glut of high-level prospects in the league that year, Knoblauch was judged tops, receiving the Outstanding Pro Prospect Award. Knoblauch batted .361, and he and Vaughn tied for the league lead in doubles with 17. Vaughn and Knoblauch went on to be inducted to the CCBL Hall of Fame as part of the hall's inaugural and second classes respectively.
The Gatemen finished the 1988 regular season with the league's top record, and disposed of Hyannis in the semi-final playoffs. The title series was a match-up of the Gatemen and the Orleans Cardinals. Orleans starred future Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas, a powerful long-ball hitter who had slammed three home runs in one game at Wareham in the regular season. Wareham took Game 1 at home, 5–3, but the Cardinals took Game 2 by the same score at Eldredge Park to set up the decisive game. In the finale, Thoden tossed a complete game four-hitter at Clem Spillane Field, Rich Samplinski knocked in the go-ahead run, and the Gatemen overcame two potentially disastrous fielding errors in the ninth to edge out the Cards and claim the crown by a tally of 3–2. Thoden shared playoff MVP honors with Vaughn, who went 11-for-20 at the plate in the postseason.
The 1990s: A long streak of success
Wareham made the playoffs every year from 1990 to 2002, a 13-year streak that remains the league record. During the streak, Wareham reached the championship series seven times, winning four times, including back-to-back championships in 2001 and 2002.
In 1990, the Gatemen reached the CCBL finals, but were ousted by the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Wareham was led by the league's Outstanding Pro Prospect, Doug Glanville, and CCBL Hall of Famer Mark Smith, who led the league with a .408 average and hit six homers on his way to being named league MVP. For the Red Sox, it was their second consecutive title under CCBL Hall of Fame manager Don Reed. After defeating the Gatemen for the 1990 title, Reed switched sides and became Wareham's field boss in 1991. Reed continued to pilot the Gatemen through 1999, winning another pair of league titles to match his two with Y-D.