Hamptons Collegiate Baseball in a League of its Own

EAST END: Next season, Hamptons Collegiate Baseball will become its own league, as all seven teams will compete as part of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League.

As reported on East Hampton Patch, the eventual hope is that Major League Baseball and the National Alliance of Collegiate Summer Baseball will sanction the HCBL to provide much-needed funding and branding.

Association with either of the two organizations will greatly help in recruiting talent.

The brainchild of Rusty Leaver, Hamptons Collegiate Baseball was founded in 2008 using the popular and successful Cape Cod Baseball League as a model. The inaugural year saw one team, the Hampton Whalers, play in the Kiaser Division of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League. HCB welcomed four new teams the next year, with the Southampton Breakers, Sag Harbor Whalers, North Fork Ospreys, Riverhead Tomcats and Westhampton Aviators competing. This year, two more teams—the Shelter Island Bucks and Center Moriches Battlecats—joined.