AUGUST 20, 2003
Collegiate baseball has chemistry
Commentary By BRETT ORZECHOWSKI

Published on 8/20/2003 - Local Sports - THE POST-STAR

GLENS FALLS - The city of Edenton, N.C., is as inviting as cities are in the South.

Weeping willows line side streets. Statues stand in honor of their Civil War dead. People walk down the street and ask you how things are going even if you are a Yankee, regrettably, like their native son Catfish Hunter.

And for three sweltering Southern summer months the city packs Hicks Field each night following their Steamers, a member of the Coastal Plain League, the second-largest collegiate baseball league in America.

Next summer Glens Falls, and perhaps Saratoga Springs in 2004, can become Edenton.

Charles Adams, the football Greenjackets' owner/president, filed an application Friday for a team in the New York Collegiate Baseball League, a wooden bat showcase for some of the premiere collegiate talent in the country.

League Commissioner Dave Chamberlain said Tuesday that Glens Falls is "more than likely a shoo-in" to enter the league in 2004, depending on a league owner vote. Chamberlain also said that the city of Saratoga Springs has expressed interest, but no application has been filed.

The results will become official at a league meeting Sept. 7.

Professional baseball will most likely never return to Glens Falls. Baseball, though, will next summer.

But there is something about a collegiate baseball league. Maybe because it's the first outpost for these collegians rather than the final outpost for veterans still hanging on in a professional independent league.

I covered the CPL last summer, and saw what a league like this could do to Division I baseball players.

For the first time, they learn what a 4 a.m. bus trip means. They learn what playing every day means. They learn the difference between playing hurt and injured.

It's a good brand of baseball.

The toughest thing for these players is not adapting. It's leaving.

The NYCBL, a 10-team outfit stretching across the state, is one of 14 collegiate baseball leagues in America that rely on community to make baseball successful in these small-market cities.

Players get jobs and stay with host families, who become their families. Teams' front offices are run by locals like Adams, who in turn rely on other local entities.

The grounds crew? Local. The vendors? Local. The money supporting this $100,000 team? Local.

Adams doesn't want people to think he's a savior. He's quick to point out he didn't do this on his own.

There are still some baseball enthusiasts in Glens Falls and some local officials who want the pastime back.

Adams was approached by the city to run this team. He obliged. When the Lumberjacks left, Mayor Robert Regan's assistant, James Clark, studied other independent professional teams and decided it couldn't happen. Then the collegiate league became an option.

"Charles knows the area, and knows how to promote sports," Clark said of Adams. "He's straightforward and we're confident in him and what he can do with baseball."

Adams is the president/general manager of the new unnamed team. He wants to surround himself on the board of operations with local baseball minds. He's already looking for next year's manager, a young college coach who will view this league as a springboard to the next level, the same vantage point as many of these collegians.

Most of these players will never play professionally, but the Coastal Plain League has a 20 percent graduation rate to the next level.

The NYCBL is a shade below the CPL, but that doesn't matter.

Someone next summer could be having breakfast every morning with the next Tim Hudson, or cut wood with Clay Bellinger at the local hardware store. Both are alumnus.

Collegiate summer leagues are a community affair in cities that still have baseball history, with some about to make a new chapter even if it isn't professional.

"There is a history here," Adams said. "It won't be easy. Doing even what the Lumberjacks did was difficult."

It shouldn't be that difficult.

Ryan Sadowski, a hard-throwing righty from the University of Florida, told his host family in Edenton that he would be back this summer.

He wasn’t Sadowski was drafted this year by the San Francisco Giants in the 12th round and is playing Class A baseball in Washington state.

Bray LaDow, a lithe sophomore outfielder from Division II Flagler College, told his host family he'd return. And he did.

That's collegiate league summer baseball.

Baseball teams told Glens Falls that they'll return next season and never lived up to the promise.

Now baseball is returning, and if all goes well with the NYCBL, for the next three seasons.