The Falmouth Commodores are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Commodores play their home games at Arnie Allen Diamond at Guv Fuller Field in Falmouth.
The Commodores most recently won the CCBL championship in 1980 when they defeated the Chatham A's in the championship series. The title was the team's sixth overall in the league's modern era, having won four consecutive league titles from 1968 to 1971. Since the club's inception, over 100 players have gone on to play in Major League Baseball.
History
Pre-modern era
Origins of baseball in Falmouth
Baseball has been played in Falmouth since the pre-Civil War days. The Barnstable Patriot reported on July 7, 1857 that, "the Fourth was celebrated at Falmouth by a game of base ball, in which some of the principal men of that place participated." In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, teams representing various Cape Cod towns routinely competed against one another. One particularly strong team was the Falmouth Heights Cottage Club team, whose name derived from the Falmouth Heights cottages where the players resided. Falmouth home games from the turn of the century through the early 1960s were played just steps from water's edge at the Central Park Field in Falmouth Heights. Spectators enjoyed an ocean view and a cool breeze as they took in the action at what was widely regarded as one of the most picturesque baseball settings in the nation.
During this era, attempts were made periodically to formalize league play among Cape Cod ballclubs. One such foray came in 1913 when Cottage Club manager H. Newton Marshall led the formation of a "Cape Cod Base Ball League". The league comprised six teams: Osterville, Pocasset, Orleans, Sandwich, South Yarmouth, and the Falmouth Heights Cottage Club, with each team playing each other team twice for a ten-game schedule. In what appears to have been the league's lone season, the Cottage Club claimed the pennant with a 9–1 record. Marshall was credited with "[turning] a rough field into one of the finest diamonds used for amateur base ball in this part of the country; ...equal in every respect to many of the major league diamonds," and with "[arousing] enthusiasm in base ball in Falmouth to such a pitch that people come from quite a distance to swell the crowds at the games." The team's popularity was such that Marshall, team captain Ralph Mendall, and the other Cottage Club players were celebrated in song at local theatrical performances.
Marshall managed the team through 1916, and his teams featured several past and future major leaguers. Fletcher Low of Dartmouth College played for the Cottage Club in 1914 and then played briefly for the Boston Braves the following season. Former New York Highlanders hurler Ray Tift pitched for the Cottage Club late in 1914, after defeating Falmouth earlier in the season as a member of the West Somerville, Massachusetts town team. Horace "Hod" Ford played shortstop for Falmouth in 1915 and 1916, and went on to play 15 years in the major leagues. Falmouth pitcher Walt Whittaker hurled a no-hitter against Oak Bluffs in 1915, and then played briefly for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics in 1916.
Available players and funding were at a premium as the U.S. became involved in World War I, but Falmouth was able to field a team in 1917 under manager Earl White, a season highlighted by a split doubleheader against the powerful visiting Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn, New York. In the 1918 and 1919 seasons, Falmouth combined players and resources with the Oak Bluffs town team in response to the war shortage. The 1918 team was managed by Lewis Whiting, and featured Dave Morey, who had played for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1913. Morey took over as player-manager of the combined team in 1919, and continued in that position for the Falmouth team in 1920 and 1921.
Morey's 1919 Falmouth-Oak Bluffs club featured Somerville, Massachusetts native Pie Traynor, a shortstop who batted .322 on the season. Prior to the Labor Day game at Falmouth Heights against a visiting Fall River club, Traynor displayed his all-around athleticism by winning a "circling the bases" competition in 15 seconds, as well as winning the sprinting and baseball throwing competitions. Traynor went on to play in the major leagues for seventeen seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the World Series with Pittsburgh in 1925, and compiling a lifetime .320 batting average. Considered one of the greatest third basemen in major league history, Traynor was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 1948, the first former Cape Leaguer to be so honored. In 2009 Traynor was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame.
The early Cape League era (1923–1939)
In 1923 the Cape Cod Baseball League was formed and included four teams: Falmouth, Chatham, Osterville, and Hyannis. This early Cape League operated through the 1939 season and disbanded in 1940, due in large part to the difficulty of securing ongoing funding during the Great Depression. Although the composition of the league changed from year to year as various teams joined or dropped out, Falmouth's entry alone lasted the entire span of the league's history.
During the 1920s, several future major leaguers played for Falmouth. Brown University pitcher Hal Neubauer pitched for Falmouth in 1923, and played for the Boston Red Sox two years later. His battery-mate at Falmouth was catcher Bill Cronin, who hit a whopping .420 in 1923. Cronin went on to play several seasons for the major league Boston Braves. Falmouth took the pennant in the league's inaugural 1923 season, posting a record of 9–3, while Chatham, Osterville and Hyannis finished in a three-way tie for second place with identical 5–7 records.
CCBL Hall of Famer Danny "Deacon" MacFayden, a Cape Cod native from Truro, played for Falmouth in 1925. The season was highlighted by MacFayden's one-hitter against Hyannis. By 1926, he was playing for the hometown Boston Red Sox and went on to pitch for 17 years in the major leagues, winning a World Series title with the New York Yankees in 1932. Haskell "Josh" Billings played for Falmouth from 1925 to 1927, was team MVP in 1925, and finished the 1927 season playing for the Detroit Tigers. National Football League running back Curly Oden spent his off-season as Falmouth's player-manager in 1927 and 1928. Oden was known as "the king of the base stealers in the league," having "thrilled the crowds on several occasions by stealing home." CCBL all-league catcher Gene Connell played for Falmouth from 1927 to 1929, and went on to play for the Philadelphia Phillies. Future major league umpire Bill Stewart pitched for Falmouth in 1929. Prior to joining Falmouth in 1929, shortstop Waddy MacPhee had played briefly for the New York Giants.
On August 26, 1929 the Falmouth team travelled to Rockland, Massachusetts to play a charity exhibition contest against the major league Boston Braves. Before a crowd of about four thousand, the big-leaguers won the game, 8–7, but the game was tight and Falmouth "not only outhit the major aggregation 13–11, but outplayed them in many departments of the game." The Braves featured Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler, who went 0-for-3 in the game. Falmouth went on finish the 1929 season two games ahead of Chatham-Harwich to win the pennant and claim the Cape League championship. The exhibition contest with the Braves became an annual event into the mid-1930s, with Falmouth defeating the major leaguers on multiple occasions. Baseball Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville played for the Braves in the 1931 Falmouth game. Falmouth also played exhibitions against well-known barnstorming teams such as the House of David, whom Falmouth defeated in a 1929 contest, the Lizzie Murphy All-Stars, who played Falmouth to a 2–2 tie in 1930, and the Philadelphia Giants, who defeated Falmouth in 1930 behind the celebrated battery of Will "Cannonball" Jackman and Burlin White.
In 1930, Holy Cross catcher Jack Walsh joined Falmouth and batted .360 for the season. From 1931 to 1935, Walsh was Falmouth's player-manager, and also managed the team in 1936. He led the league in batting in 1933 with a .362 average, and skippered the team to league championships in 1931, 1932 and 1935. Walsh posted a 170–109 won-loss record as manager and did not have a losing season. He was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame in 2007. One of Walsh's charges at Falmouth was pitcher Al Blanche, a Somerville, Massachusetts native who was part of Falmouth's 1931 title team and went on to play for the Boston Braves. Another member of the 1931 team was third baseman Al Niemiec of Holy Cross. Niemiec went on to play for the Boston Red Sox, and in 1937 was traded by the Red Sox with one other player to San Diego of the Pacific Coast League in exchange for a promising young "kid" named Ted Williams. 1933 Falmouth hurler Emil "Bud" Roy began the summer with Barnstable, finished it with Falmouth, and was playing with the Philadelphia Athletics in September.
Walsh's 1935 Falmouth title team starred Bill "Lefty" Lefebvre, who went on to play for the Boston Red Sox and Washington Senators, and also featured pitcher Jud McLaughlin, who had played for the major league Red Sox a few years earlier. Due to a split regular season, the 1935 CCBL championship was decided by a best-of-five playoff between Falmouth and Barnstable. Falmouth sent Lefebvre to the mound in Game 1 at Hallet's Field, and took an 8–3 victory over Barnstable's ace Ted Olson in a pitching duel between future teammates for the 1938 Boston Red Sox. In Game 2 at home, Falmouth scratched out two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win, 3–2, and take a commanding series lead. Games 3 and 4 were played as a doubleheader, and Barnstable came out on top in both halves of the twinbill, 9–1 and 11–5, to even up the series. In Game 3 at Central Park Field, Barnstable slugger Jake Edwards hit a ball that crashed through the third-story window of a house just beyond the park's cozy right field, a blast that many Falmouth fans estimated was the longest seen at the field. The decisive Game 5 finale at Falmouth Heights was a rematch of moundsmen Lefebvre and Olson. With both hurlers pitching effectively, the game was tied, 2–2, with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Falmouth walked it off and took the title in exciting fashion when Jerry Shanahan scored on a hard line drive by Myron Ruckstull that resulted in an error off the usually reliable infielding glove of Barnstable's 18-year-old future major leaguer and CCBL Hall of Famer Lennie Merullo.
Joe Mulligan and Red Flaherty played for Falmouth in 1936. Mulligan had pitched for the Boston Red Sox in 1934, and Flaherty went on to enjoy a long major league umpiring career, officiating for over 20 years in the American League, including four World Series assignments. Falmouth's 1938 championship team featured burly slugger John Spirida, who went on to play pro football with the Washington Redskins the following year. The pitching star of the 1938 title team was former longtime major league hurler Rosy Ryan, who played in three World Series, and struck out the mighty Babe Ruth with the bases loaded in the 1923 World Series.
In 1939, the final year of the early Cape League, night baseball was introduced for the first time. Portable lights were staged at the Falmouth Heights field and used for a game against Barnstable. The following night, the lights were transported to Hyannis for the second game of the home-and-home series between the two clubs. Falmouth went on to win its second consecutive league championship in 1939, led by Danvers, Massachusetts native Connie Creeden, who went on to play for the Boston Braves.
The Upper and Lower Cape League era (1946–1962)