Sports
The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Wareham Gatemen also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham in Plymouth County. The league originated 1923, although intertown competition traces to 1866. Teams in the league are the Bourne Braves, Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers (formerly the Chatham Athletics), Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Harbor Hawks (formerly the Hyannis Mets), Orleans Firebirds (formerly the Orleans Cardinals), Wareham Gatemen and the Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox. Pro ball scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future.
Cape Cod is also a national hotbed for baseball and hockey. Along with the Cape Cod Baseball League and the new Junior Hockey League team, the Cape Cod Cubs, many high school players are being seriously recruited as well. Barnstable and Harwich have each sent multiple players to Division 1 colleges for baseball. Harwich has also won three state titles since 1996 (1996, 2006, 2007). Bourne and Sandwich, rivals in hockey, have each won state championships recently, Bourne in 2004 and Sandwich in 2007. Nauset, Barnstable, and Martha's Vineyard are also state hockey powerhouses. Barnstable and Falmouth hold the title of having one of the longest Thanksgiving football rivalries in the country. The teams have played each other every year on the Thanksgiving since 1895. The Bourne and Barnstable girl's volleyball teams are two of the best teams in the state and Barnstable in the country. Bourne won the state title in 2003 and 2007, and Barnstable has won 12 Division 1 state titles in the past 12 years and has won the state title the two years in a row. In the 2010 cross country season, Sturgis Charter Public School's Division 4 cross country team remained virtually unbeaten throughout their running season.
The Cape is home to the Cape Cod Frenzy, a team in the American Basketball Association.
Soccer on Cape Cod is represented by the Cape Cod Crusaders, playing in the USL Premier Development League (PDL) based in Hyannis. In addition, a summer Cape Cod Adult Soccer League (CCASL) is active in several towns on the Cape.
Cape Cod is the home of the Cape Cod Cubs, a new junior league hockey team that is based out of Hyannis at the new community center being built on Bearses Way.
The end of each summer is marked with the running of the Falmouth Road Race, held on the third Saturday in August. It draws about 10,000 runners to the Cape and showcases the finest runners in the world (mainly for the large purse that the race is able to offer). The race is 7.2 miles (11.6 km) long, which is a non-standard distance. The reason for the unusual distance is that the man who thought the race up (Tommy Leonard) was a bartender who wanted a race along the coast from one bar (The Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole) to another (The Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights). While the bar in Falmouth Heights is now the British Beer Company, the race still starts at the front door of the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole and now finishes at the beach in Falmouth Heights. Prior to the Falmouth race is an annual 5-mile (8.0 km) race through Brewster called the Brew Run, held early in August.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)