New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
CCBL expands, maintains local feel
It may look a bit different from previous years, but within the first few pitches the oddities slip into irrelevance while the realization that baseball is back washes over.
The Connecticut Collegiate Baseball League is underway, and despite the differences such as the home plate umpire standing behind the pitcher’s mound, coaches wearing masks in the dugout, and uniformed players sitting in the stands, the game is finally back from its pause since March.
“Everybody just wants to play and this was an opportunity,” Hamden Miners manager Bill Roberston said. “It’s a college league so they either didn’t play games or got shut down and the high school seniors didn’t get to play at all. This is a chance to get some work and get some at bats.”
The CCBL, which expanded from six to ten teams this season, is a league consisting of mostly local players who are playing baseball in college currently, or are incoming freshman for the 2020-21 school year.
With other Collegiate Leagues such as Cape Cod and the New England Collegiate Baseball League cancelling the 2020 season, the
CCBL has benefited.
“Last year we had six teams, and I was planning on having six again this year but once the Cape Cod League and the NECBL cancelled their season the dominoes started to fall,” CCBL Commissioner Tim Vincent said. “They kind of fell into our laps so we added four more teams. We are now up to ten teams with 25-28 men on each roster.”