By Paul Gotham
ROCHESTER, NY – The New York Collegiate Baseball League will open its 2013 season on Monday, June 3rd, and the 2012 league champions get the honors. The Syracuse Jr. Chiefs will host a doubleheader against the Sherrill Silversmiths at Alliance Bank Stadium when the NYCBL opens its 35th season.
The double dip begins a slate that runs through July 22nd with 11 NYCBL teams playing 40 regular season games.
Two games are on tap the following night with the Jr. Chiefs hosting their cross-town foes Syracuse Salt Cats in a renewal of the Salt City rivalry. On the same evening, league runner-up Niagara Power will welcome the Hornell Dodgers. Three league games will take place on Wednesday and the same on Thursday.
By week’s end a full docket of games is scheduled with five contests on Friday the seventh and four each on the Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend of play.
All 11 NYCBL teams will comprise one division with the top six teams advancing to the playoffs starting on July 23rd. The first round of the post-season will be single elimination with the sixth and third seeds squaring off while the fourth and fifth place teams do battle.
The second round and championship will both be a best-of-three series.
The league welcomes back 2011 champion, the Oneonta Outlaws. Gary Laing heads up the new ownership for the Outlaws.
The Jr. Chiefs and Outlaws will meet on Friday, June 14th in a game that pits that last two league champions.
The Olean Oilers, Geneva Twins, Geneva Red Wings, Lake Ontario Ridgemen and the Wellsville Nitros round out the rest of the league lineup.
This year’s All-Star Game will take place on July ninth at McDonough Park in Geneva, New York. Scout day activities are to be announced.
Tim Locastro earned MVP honors as the Jr, Chiefs swept the Power in last year’s championship.
The Oneonta Outlaws were a part of the Perfect Game League in 2012.
The NYCBL is part of the National Alliance of College Summer Baseball (NACSB) which oversees the rules and policies of ten different summer leagues: the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League, Cape Cod Baseball League, Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League, Florida Collegiate Summer League, Great Lakes Collegiate Summer League, New England Collegiate Baseball League, Southern Collegiate Baseball League, Sunbelt Baseball League, and the Valley League Baseball.
These ten leagues provide a variety of competition levels that help prepare young players for life in professional baseball. One in every six Major League players has spent at least one summer playing in the Cape Cod League.
This past summer, two NYCBL players, Eric Eck (Hornell Dodgers) and Wes Van Boom (Sherrill Silversmiths) finished their summers playing in the Cape league. Eck pitched with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks while Van Boom played with the Harwich Mariners.
Three NYCBL players signed free agent deals late this summer. Dan Fiorito (Syracuse Salt Cats) inked a minor league deal with the New York Yankees. Ryan Fennel (Geneva Red Wings) signed with the Cincinnati Reds. Jake Chaplin (Geneva Red Wings) signed to play in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Current major league players Tim Hudson, Hunter Pence and John McDonald all spent a summer playing in the NYCBL.
Twenty-one former NYCBL players heard their names called during the 2012 MLB draft.
More than 25 NYCBL alums dot rosters in Minor League Baseball.
Founded in 1978, the NYCBL is a summer wood-bat league which provides eligible student-athletes the opportunity to develop skills over the course of two months in Upstate New York.
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