The Chatham Anglers, more commonly referred to as the Chatham A's and formerly the Chatham Athletics, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Chatham, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's East Division. Chatham plays its home games at historic Veterans Field, the team's home since 1923, in the town of Chatham on the Lower Cape. The A's have been operated by the non-profit Chatham Athletic Association since 1963.1998 Cape Cod Baseball League Official Yearbook, p. 14
Chatham has won five CCBL championships, most recently in 1998, when they defeated the Wareham Gatemen in the championship series. 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, Osterville, and Hyannis. This early Cape 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. Chatham competed in the Cape League from the league's inaugural 1923 season through the 1926 season, then from 1927 to 1929 competed as a combined Chatham-Harwich team with home games split between Veterans Field and Harwich's Brooks Park.
Chatham's 1923 team included CCBL Hall of Famer Merrill Doane. Doane, a 1924 graduate of Chatham High School, remained involved in the Cape League and Chatham baseball for over 60 years. One of the longest-tenured general managers in Cape League history, Doane was instrumental in the league's transition to an NCAA-sanctioned collegiate league in the early 1960s, and helped build the powerful Chatham teams of the 1960s. In 1925, Brockton High School star Pat Creeden played third base for Chatham, and went on to play briefly for the Boston Red Sox in 1931.
In the 1927 season, the combined Chatham-Harwich team finished fourth in the five-team league, but nevertheless was described as "the hardest hitting team in the league." 1927 Chatham-Harwich first baseman Jack Burns went on to play in seven major league seasons for the St. Louis Browns and Detroit Tigers. In all three seasons of the joint Chatham-Harwich team, the club featured Boston College batterymates pitcher Pete Herman and catcher George Colbert, as well as flashy infielder Artie Gore. The trio of Herman, Colbert and Gore later teamed up again with Barnstable to bring that club multiple Cape League championships in the 1930s. Gore went on to a major league umpiring career, working ten years in the National League, including two World Series assignments.
In 1930, Chatham again fielded its own team, as Harwich split off and became a separate club. Pete Herman remained with the Chatham team as its player-manager in 1930 and 1931, leading the team on an exciting stretch run and second-place finish just two games behind pennant-winning Wareham in 1930.
Chatham withdrew from the league prior to the 1932 season as a result of the town's decision not to appropriate funds for the team. Throughout the rest of the 1930s, Chatham's town team competed in the Cape Cod Twilight League, winning that league's title seven consecutive seasons from 1933 to 1939.
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, with Chatham joining the Lower Cape Division. Chatham has been a member of the Cape League ever since.
In 1957, Chatham was led by CCBL Hall of Famer Bill Walker, who posted a league-leading .432 batting average. CCBL Hall of Fame skipper John Carroll took the helm at Chatham in 1961. The following season, Carroll's club finished the regular season in first place atop the Lower Cape Division, but failed to reach the Cape League title series, losing to Harwich in the Lower Cape championship series.
Modern era (1963–present)
The 1960s: A new league and a first championship 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. Chatham's team, known as the Chatham Red Sox, joined Orleans, Harwich, Yarmouth and a team from Otis Air Force Base in the Lower Cape Division.
Chatham continued to be managed by John Carroll, whose 1963 club featured CCBL Hall of Famer Ken Voges of Texas Lutheran University, who led the league with an astronomical .505 batting average. The Red Sox finished the regular season with a 28–6 record, good enough for first place in the Lower Cape Division, but fell to Orleans in the playoffs.
Chatham continued its regular season dominance in 1964, 1965 and 1966, finishing atop the Lower Cape Division each year, but falling in each season's CCBL title series. The 1964 team was piloted by Bill "Lefty" Lefebvre, who had played in the Cape League for Falmouth in the 1930s, and had later played in the major leagues with Boston and Washington. Lefebvre's team featured CCBL Hall of Fame second baseman Steve Saradnik of Providence College, who batted .314, and pitcher Charlie Hough, who went on to a 25-year major league knuckleballing career.
In 1965, Lefebvre was succeeded by CCBL Hall of Fame manager Joe "Skip" Lewis, who led the team through 1969. Lewis' 1965 squad returned Saradnik, and added another two CCBL Hall of Famers in University of Connecticut righty Ed Baird, who posted a 3–0 record with a 0.45 ERA, and George Greer, who batted .349 and led the league in doubles and triples.
The star-studded 1966 Chatham team returned Saradnik, Baird and Greer, and added another three CCBL Hall of Famers: catcher Tom Weir, who led the league with a .420 batting average, all-star hurler Joe Jabar, who went 7–0 with a 1.53 ERA and took home the league's Outstanding Pitcher Award, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts native Tom Grieve. Drafted out of high school in the first round, sixth overall, of the 1966 Major League Baseball draft by the Washington Senators, Grieve played in 25 games for Chatham and batted .416 prior to signing with Washington and moving on to a lengthy major league career.
In 1967, it finally came together for Lewis' boys. Saradnik, Greer, Baird and Jabar all returned and were hungry for a title. Added to the mix was Kent State University catcher Thurman Munson, who hit .420 on the season and was named league MVP. During the regular season, Chatham pitcher Don Gabriel tossed a no-hitter against Harwich at Veterans Field. Chatham again finished in first place in the Lower Cape Division, and met Upper Cape powerhouse Falmouth for the second consecutive season in the title series. In Game 1 of the championship, Chatham pitcher John Frobose twirled 13 innings in a game that was called due to darkness and ended in a 1–1 tie. Chatham took Game 2, 7–1, behind the stellar pitching of Baird. Jabar, the league's Outstanding Pitcher, was the star of Game 3, tossing a complete game five-hitter, and knocking in the game-winning RBI in Chatham's 3–2 victory, clinching the series and giving Chatham its first Cape League championship.Alder, Eric (2005-07-28). "Chatham A's 1967 Team Honored". The Cape Cod Chronicle. Retrieved on 2013-02-04.
Munson went on to be selected by the New York Yankees in the first round, fourth overall, of the 1968 Major League Baseball draft. A perennial all-star for the Bronx Bombers, Munson won two World Series and was named the Yanks' first captain since Lou Gehrig. His tragic 1979 death brought fond reminiscences from those who knew him at Chatham. Munson was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class of 2000, and his name graces the league's annual award for batting champion.
The 1970s
In the late 1960s, Chatham had dropped the nickname "Red Sox", and reverted to the colloquial Chatham Townies moniker of earlier years. In 1972, the Chatham Athletic Association settled on Chatham Athletics as the team's new moniker, and the Chatham A's were born. The A's finished the 1973 regular season in first place atop the Cape League under skipper Ben Hays. The team featured future major leaguer Dave Bergman, the CCBL batting champ who hit at a .341 clip, and CCBL Hall of Fame hurler John Caneira, the league's Outstanding Pitcher, who posted a 9–1 record and led the league with a 1.37 ERA while striking out 118 and walking only 23 in 92 innings.
CCBL Hall of Fame manager Ed Lyons took the reins in 1976, and led the A's to another first-place finish. Chatham was led by the league's Outstanding Pro Prospect Steve Taylor, and CCBL Hall of Famer Mickey O'Connor, a 6-foot-6 southpaw who went 9–0 with a 1.07 ERA and eight complete games, and was the league's Outstanding Pitcher. The team ousted Hyannis in the playoffs, but was shut down by Wareham in the title series. Lyons skippered the Athletics for seven seasons, with the team qualifying for postseason play in six of the seven years.
The A's of the late 1970s featured Jim Lauer, who set a CCBL record with three home runs in a single game against Hyannis, Harvard University slugger and CCBL Hall of Famer Mike Stenhouse, who starred for Chatham from 1977 through 1979, and longtime major league hurler and CCBL Hall of Famer Walt Terrell, who went 9–4 with a 2.20 ERA in 1979 while working a league record 122.2 innings on the season.
The 1980s and a second championship Lyons again skippered Chatham to a first-place finish in 1980 before succumbing to Falmouth in the championship series. The 1980 A's starred CCBL Hall of Famers Glenn Davis, who batted .377 on the season, and Jim Sherman, who batted .339 and returned to Chatham in 1981 and enjoy another all-star season, batting .335.
In 1982, skipper Ed Lyons announced mid-season that he would be retiring after the summer. Lyons had managed six seasons at Wareham in the early 1970s, and was now in his seventh season with Chatham, but had yet to win a league title. Lyons' 1982 A's finished the regular season in fourth place with a pedestrian 20–21–1 record, having slipped into the playoffs on the final day of the season with a victory over Orleans. The team starred future major league all-star Kevin Seitzer, who hit .291 on the season and .677 in the playoffs, slugger Billy Merrifield, who clouted eight homers on the season, team MVP Brett Elbin, all-star centerfielder Greg Schuler, and the league's Outstanding Pro Prospect, pitcher Gary Kanwisher, who led the league with a 1.57 ERA. Lyons' staff included young third base coach John Schiffner. The A's matched up against first place Wareham in the playoff semi-finals, and promptly disposed of the Gatemen in two games.
In the championship series, Chatham met up with Hyannis in a best three-out-of-five title tilt. The A's went on the road for Game 1, and came away with a tight 5–4 win in 11 innings. Game 2 at Veterans Field also went to extra frames, with the Mets taking a 4–3 lead in the 11th, but the home club tied it in the bottom half, and then took the lead in the 12th to win by another 5–4 tally. Reliever Kurt Lundgren got the win in both games, coming on in the eighth inning of Game 1, then in the 12th inning of Game 2 to nail it down after starter Kanwisher held the mound through eleven. After two nail-biters, Game 3 at McKeon Park was a runaway. The A's led off the game with a dinger by Elbin and another by Merrifield, scoring four runs in the first for starter Jeff Brewer, and never looked back. Brewer tossed a complete game four-hitter, and the A's pummeled the Mets, 9–0, to complete the three-game sweep and claim Chatham's second league crown.