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The Sunday Plate Collection
By Glen Farley, Enterprise staff writer
Players in the Massachusetts Independent Baseball League approach their games religiously. "It's strictly a Sunday league," said Gregg Stone, the manager of the MIBL's Easton-based Phillies Baseball Club who doubles as a pitcher for his team, "but it gives me something to look forward to each weekend. "It's a good way to hang out with the guys and shoot the breeze. To me, this makes the spring and summer fly by." They are the boys of Sunday.
"We've talked about playing during the week," said Jay Connors, who, in addition to serving as the MIBL's commissioner, founded the league's Brockton Red Sox, manages and pitches for that team, "but to this point we haven't done it."
The MIBL's schedule may be limited, but its field of teams has expanded since its inaugural season in 2000, when the Taunton Titans claimed the league's very first crown. The MIBL has grown from 10 teams that year to its current state — 14 ballclubs split into two divisions of seven teams, playing a regular-season schedule consisting of 10 doubleheaders on Sundays from April 18 through July 18 (there are no games on Mother's Day, Father's Day and Memorial Day weekend and July 4), followed by the league's playoffs.
A 1990 Brockton High School product and member of Massasoit Community College's 1993 national championship team, the 32-year-old Connors believes the aluminum bat league provides an outlet and fills a need for the area's amateur baseball talent. "Unless you're a stud and continue playing for the Braintree White Sox, the Easton Huskies or the Brockton Tigers in the Cranberry League, there's nowhere to go," the Connors said. "This is an alternative."
While Connors admits that the MIBL may not have the depth to contend with the more established Cranberry League, founded by the late Connie Spillane in 1960, on a consistent basis, he insists his league's top talent could compete with its older brother.
"They're better," Connors conceded. "They get all the college kids, so they're superior talent-wise, but you put an all-star team from our league on the field against an all-star team from the Cranberry League and it would be closer than people think. "With our great pitching — guys like Derek Lennon (the former Harvard University hurler), Steve Pacheco (the former Massasoit Community College first-team All-American) and Scotty Mitchell (the MIBL's all-time winningest pitcher) on the mound — we could compete with them. On the average, we've probably got six or seven guys on each team who can play, then it kind of drops off toward the end." "When I first came in the league, I laughed at it," said Brockton Reds manager, first baseman and outfielder Frankee Alexopoulos, who has guided his team to a pair of league championships, "but through the work of Jason (Connors) and the other managers, the league has improved tenfold. It's more organized and more talented. We're on our way."
"Give us a few years," added B.J. MacAulay, a center fielder with the Blue Jays who played with the Brockton Cubs last season. "This is an up-and-coming league that's adding more talent every year. We're getting there."
What the MIBL may lack in ability, Connors maintains it more than makes up in its approach. "To be honest with you, I don't think anybody in the Cranberry League cares who wins the league title," said Connors. "They care about the Stan Musial (Tournament). In my league, it's such a pride thing, everybody wants to win it."
As often as not, though, the Reds have won it. While the Titans took the title in 2000, the Reds, boasting six all-stars each season, compiled a 61-9 record from 2001-2003 and claimed championships in the odd-numbered years. The Brockton Bulldogs, now the Brockton Brewers, claimed the title in 2002, between the Reds' crowns in 2001 and 2003, were in the championship round last year and swept a doubleheader from the Reds earlier this month.
As presently constituted, the MIBL is broken up into two divisions known as the Justice and Liberty Leagues. The Avon Orioles, the Brockton Brewers, the Eire Pub Athletics of Dorchester, the Middleboro Blue Jays, the Phillies Baseball Club of Easton, the South Shore Tigers and the Taunton Titans comprise the Justice League, while the Brockton Angels, the Brockton Reds, the Brockton Red Sox, the Pawtucket Black Sox, the Quincy Granite, the Randolph Indians and the South Shore Cardinals comprise the Liberty League.
"We could expand a lot more," said Connors. "We could go upwards of 30 teams if we chose to, but I like the idea of working with a 14-team league."
As it is, that has proven to be a task unto itself this year.
Two weeks before the start of the season, the Cubs folded, leading to the hasty formation of the Blue Jays. A couple days after the Cubs pulled out, a proposed Rhode Island-based team followed suit, leading to a hectic period that resulted in the addition of the Indians. "I must have made 300 phone calls that week," said Connors. "This has been the most challenging of all my years."
All this in a year when Connors, who works in consumer relations out of FootJoy's corporate headquarters in Fairhaven, was ready to give up his Bud Selig gig as league commissioner. "It takes up so much of my time, I was ready to call it quits," said Connors. "I've got two little girls (4-year-old Kayla, 8-month-old Kelsey), but my wife (Kelly) convinced me to stick with this. She doesn't give me any grief about it. She knows it's my fun, the love of my life. I think about it 24/7. I come home after work and look at the Web site (mibl.net)."
Ah, the MIBL Web.
That can be a tangled Web, which gives Connors some grief.
In fact, some of the trash-talking in the league's guest book has reached World Wrestling Entertainment proportions, prompting the commissioner to threaten suspensions if threats were actually carried out. "Ninety percent of it's good, funny stuff. It really is," said Connors. "That Web site gets people so motivated, they're up for every game. We were getting ready to play the Randolph Indians and one of their guys went on it saying how we were the league's bridesmaids, we seem to come close every year but can't win the big one. This is a guy on a first-year team firing away, mind you. Well, my team was so motivated to play them, it was awesome.
"Unfortunately," said Connors, "some guys get carried away. I'm not proud of that." Connors is proud of the MIBL's Web site as a whole, however. In addition to the standard package of the league standings and schedule, it contains individual team pages complete with logos and up-to-date rosters and statistics, attributes rarely seen in leagues at this level.
"I don't know how many people know about it, but through Eteamz leagues can go in and set up and design their own Web sites," said Connors. "I pay a small fee for ours because it's more involved, but without it the league wouldn't have reached the point it's at now.
"With the help of my nephew (Stephen Hughes, a graduate of the New England Institute of Technology), three years ago we started our site," said Connors. "The first year was pretty basic — standings, schedule. Now, each team has its own individual Web site with logos, up-to-date stats and rosters. So if another team or the general public wants it, the information's there. That's all part of my goal, which is to make this the best organized league in the state."
Connors also credits his old coach with the Dunnington entry in Brockton's Brookfield Little League, Paul Wilgoren, with pitching in.
"I have to give a lot of credit to Paul," said Connors. "He's my umpiring coordinator. In five years, we haven't had a single game where the umpires didn't show up at a field."
Whether the services of those umpires will eventually be needed by the MIBL on days other than Sundays remains to be seen, but to this point the league has resisted the temptation to broaden its schedule.
"Fields are a big issue," said Connors.
Yes, the MIBL seems to operate under the mantra: "If it's built, they will play there." Games this season are scheduled to be played at area fields such as Avon High School and that town's Butler School, at the Eldon B. Keith Field, the North Junior High School, O'Donnell and Walker Playgrounds in Brockton, East Bridgewater's Strong Field, Middleboro's Peirce Playground, Oliver Ames High School, Randolph High School and at Taunton High. The fields aren't all that stand between the MIBL and an expanded schedule.
"Beyond that," said Connors, "so many of our guys work weeknights."
"Playing every Sunday works out good for me," said MacAulay. "I work every night to 6:30. Personally, I couldn't play during the week. I like playing once a week." "I never could play in the Cranberry League because of work," Alexopoulos said. "This is very convenient."
For now and the foreseeable future, then, it's always on Sunday in the MIBL.
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