Ten of the top 30 picks in the 2022 Major League Baseball Draft all have one thing in common: They all spent time playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League. That includes UConn baseball first-rounder Reggie Crawford, who went to the San Francisco Giants.

In fact, according to CCBL, there are around 300 active major leaguers who have come through the ranks in Cape Town. As another season rolls around in the summer, there’s another class of players hoping to add their names to this list, and a handful of them have Connecticut ties.

“Just sort of walking the field,” UConn pitcher Garrett Coe said. “And it takes a bit of time to figure out that that’s, like, that’s one of the big steps in the plan that you make as a kid.”

Coe is playing his first summer in the CCBL. He pitched fellow Falmouth Commodores Nutmegger Chase Jeter.

“It was a great experience last year,” Jeter said. “And I was able to have a good season and be able to come back for this summer.”

Coe is one of four UConn players in the league. On the night of NBC Connecticut’s visit, he faced Husky teammate Justin Willis, who pitches for the Bourne Braves.

“There’s a bunch of former students who have come up to me in the bullpen and are going to say, ‘hey UConn, let’s go!’ We had a pretty good year. So that was cool,” Willis said. “I think people are starting to take notice of that.”

“Every bat here is a chore,” Coe said. “For the most part, these guys come with their best swings, and you really have to hit your best shots or you’re going to have a little trouble here.”

The handful of athletes from Connecticut dot rosters filled with players from California, Texas and Florida. Jeter is even more of an outlier: a West Hartford Public School graduate and the only Sacred Heart trailblazer on one of the 10 teams.

“I had a very different road to a lot of players,” Jeter said. I wasn’t in, you know, the top summer teams, the first high school program, the first college program. But I think I’m also going to show people that you don’t necessarily need to be one of those things to still have good skills and be able to compete with the best players around.

The thing is, they’re all here for the same reason – these guys can just play a little closer to home.

It’s awesome,” Willis said. “As it’s our part of the country, people come to where we play. They liked that it’s nice and warm now but you know, you played with snow on the pitch in January, that’s another thing.

You can catch Cape Cod Baseball in Hartford this summer. The Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox and Hyannis Harbor Hawks will visit Dunkin Donuts Park on July 20 for an 11 a.m. first pitch.

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