Harbor Hawks Capture 1st Western Division Title in 34 Years; Hungry for Cape League Playoffs

It was nearly 34 years ago to the day when veteran Hyannis assistant coach Nick "The Greek" Siemasz first donned a Hyannis Mets uniform, but not since has it felt so good.

The wizened veteran of the Cape Cod Baseball League trenches has seen it all along these sandy shores when it comes to baseball, but now with his Hyannis Harbor Hawks (formerly the Hyannis Mets from 1976 until 2009) firmly ensconced atop the Cape League's Western Division with a 29-13 record and ownership of the regular season crown, the sun seems to beat down more brightly upon the gray-whiskered gentleman of McKeon Park.

"We did pretty good this year," Siemasz said this afternoon as the Hyannis boys readied for the regular-season finale, a doubleheader at home versus the Falmouth Commodores, then quickly deflected to talk of his former bat boys and old Cape League friends.

Hyannis Field Manager Chad Gassman, now in his fourth season with the Harbor Hawks (third as head coach), couldn't have agreed more.

"Thirty percent of it is coaching," the affable Gassman chimed in. "The biggest thing is getting the right guys in here, having them show up and keeping them here."

The last two seasons, the Harbor Hawks finished in last place in the Western Division with a 14-30 mark in 2010 and a 16-26-1 record in 2009, Gassman's first at the Harbor Hawks' helm and the last season the franchise was known by its original moniker, the Hyannis Mets. This season has marked a 180-degree turn for the boys in blue and orange and Gassman could not seem to be walking any lighter on air.

"We really have good team chemistry," Gassman said. "I think that's the key up here. We went after the best players we could find in the mid-major colleges, players who didn't feel that it was an entitlement to be here."

The pre-season recruiting strategy worked like a charm. Rather than wait weeks for nine or 10 top Division collegiate "names" to show up while the NCAA College World Series wound down, eating away at Cape League rosters and in many cases, whole seasons, Gassman and general manager Bill Bussiere welcomed lesser-known players with open arms; players with comparable skill and talent but not necessarily that "superstar appeal" that often makes Cape League teams look fabulous "on paper," as Gassman pointed out, but then have no choice but to show up late into the season as their teams finish competing at the CWS.

"It's really the chemistry," Bussiere added. "We went after the mid-majors (players at smaller schools) and they all came hungry. The rest of our strategy is a secret."

Bolstered with the confidence of this season's best record in the Cape League at 29-13, the Harbor Hawks sincerely appear every bit a "team" rather than a collection of individually gifted athletes here in hopes of raising their draft ante with a good showing in the most prestigious summer amateur baseball league in the world.

A big part of that "team" effort has been the Harbor Hawks' rock-solid pitching corps led by righty ace Scott Firth (Clemson) who lowered his earned run average this afternoon to a league-leading 1.15 and a 3-0 mark on the hill. The staff is also led by one of the league's top strikeout aces, Jon Moscot, a junior out of Pepperdine who had 46 Ks in 43.1 innings pitched while walking only eight.

"Our starters have given us a chance to compete," Gassman said. "They've been giving us five or six strong innings every game."

Gassman, who serves in the off-season as the head coach at Waldorf College (Forest City, Iowa), also noted the outstanding play this summer of shortstop Eric Stamets (Evansville) and centerfielder Joey Rickard (Arizona) as key reasons for the team's success. As of this afternoon, Stamets was batting a highly respectable .288 with Rickard slightly ahead at a crisp .298. Out of the 250 players who show up on the Cape each summer, usually only 10 or less finish with batting averages at .300 or above, so anything in the high .200s is, as Coach Gassman pointed out, highly successful.  

This Friday (August 5) the Cape League's two-year-old playoff system will test those Hyannis arms and the end results will be a true indication of whether the Harbor Hawks will proceed to vie for the overall Cape League championship. Hyannis will host the fourth place Falmouth Commodores at McKeon Park at 7:00 pm in game one of a best-of-three series.

Last year, the Cape League initiated a new four-team inter-divisional playoff postseason, rather than the old, "top two teams" system in each division. The Harbor Hawks are hoping to claim the Western Division playoff title, then advance against the Eastern Division Champions next week before all players must return to their respective schools on August 15.

Bussiere, the Harbor Hawks' general manager for the past three years, likes his teams chances.

"Every year it gets better," Bussiere said and wondered aloud if he should "pinch himself" to see if his team's good fortunes this summer are real or just a dream.

"Think of all the champions we've had on this field this summer... first Pope John Paul II High School, then (Post 206) American Legion, then Team Cape Cod and then us (the Harbor Hawks). It's really amazing," Bussiere said.

Retaining the quality players Bussiere and Gassman recruited prior to Opening Day this spring was another key element in the team's success. When a team isn't doing well, it can be difficult to convince a homesick young man from Oklahoma to keep up the daily grind of a baseball season that essentially began back in February (the beginning of Division 1 collegiate seasons). But tuck a few wins under your belt and experience the lucidity of playing ball under a starlit Cape Cod summer sky, tack on a few good home-cooked meals from host families and summer on the Cape doesn't seem so hard to stomach.

As Scott Firth's smile beamed from ear-to-ear in the bullpen prior to the first pitch of today's game, and as his warm-up fastballs sizzled and sliced and pounded into his catcher's mitt in uniform cadence, it became abundantly clear that it was not quite hard to stomach at all.