Three months ago, 30 brawny, college-age boys from every corner of the country descended on a little Island in the Atlantic called Martha’s Vineyard. They flew from the Florida panhandle, the San Francisco Bay, the North Carolina foothills and the Tennessee Smokies.
All but one took ferries from the Massachusetts mainland. The other, a graduate of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, biked from his home on New York avenue in Oak Bluffs.
They represented Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt, UMass and Dayton. They studied at Yale, Georgetown, Williams and Rice. They left their white socks on the continent, opting instead for bright purple stirrups and the jerseys to match. They stayed with strangers on a strange Island, and quickly became family in a place they just as quickly started calling home.
These were the 2018 Martha’s Vineyard Sharks, and this was a summer they won’t soon forget.
“I choose character guys,” general manager Russ Curran said before the season began. “Character guys who are here to win a championship.”
From day one, the 2018 Sharks proved they had character. It would take all season for them to prove they could win a championship.
“I looked at their college stats coming in,” Mr. Curran said. “I was worried about hitting. A lot of guys didn’t hit well in college. And the pitching, a lot of guys didn’t throw a lot of innings. But when they came here, they’ve been lights out. They’ve been good.”
The Sharks opened the 2018 season with a dominating 8-1 victory over the visiting North Shore Navigators. They’d stay in first place for the rest of the year, relying on the deepest bullpen in the league, a plethora of skilled, athletic position players, and clutch hit after clutch hit from the likes of third baseman Jackson Raper, first baseman Eric Foggo, and catcher Nick Raposo.
They dismantled the league’s earned run average leader, Henry Ennen of the Worcester Bravehearts, midway through the year, and then beat up on him again in the playoffs. They had 12 all-stars, a defensive player of the year, and the league’s best pitching prospect, Chance Huff.
They crushed pizzas just as often as they crushed baseballs. They stole hearts just as often as they stole bases.
Some Sharks were a fit from the beginning. Center fielder Matt Chamberlain, with flowing shoulder-length hair and a “cheeseburger grin,” according to his host family, led the team in hits all season. He also had their last hit, a mammoth lead-off home run in the final game of the FCBL world series.
Between his first single in May and that home run in August, he started almost every game for the Sharks, served as a leader both at the top of the lineup and at the top of the dugout, and won the league’s equivalent of the gold glove award.
“A guy like Chamberlain, we just knew from the get-go,” said hitting coach Billy Uberti. “He’s the hardest worker on the team, and we knew what he was capable of.”
After the season ended, Mr. Curran walked up to Matt for a final embrace. “You’re the best,” he told him.
Other Sharks had to work for their roles. Shortstop Kellen Hatheway from Williams won the job midseason, while left fielder Collin Shapiro came to the team on a temporary contract and never left. Shapiro ended the season with the highest batting average on the squad, and Hatheway the second-most home runs.
“They love being on the Vineyard,” said Mr. Uberti. “I think that’s the biggest draw and it’s why guys perform. The other teams are in Brockton, Bristol Connecticut, Lynn. Nothing compares to here. The only downfall is travel.”
Like Paul Revere, the Sharks were no strangers to midnight rides.
“When we come back from away games, we take a fishing boat called the Patriot,” Mr. Uberti said. “We all get packed up on that. It’s a little bumpy. It’s a little sketchy. You’re holding on for dear life. But it’s a good time.”
They took the Patriot boat over 30 times this season, with the final ride coming on Sunday night after leveling the world series with the Worcester Bravehearts at a game apiece.
“It was a normal ride,” coach Jay Mendez said afterward. “Mainly because I don’t think there was any doubt we were going to win that game.”
That wasn’t the first time the Sharks performed with their backs against the wall. Down one game to none against Brockton in the first round of the playoffs and trying to hold on to a precarious one-run lead in the eighth inning, outfielder Luke Hartman from Bucknell made a diving catch to save at least two runs. Coach Jay Mendez called it the signature play of the season, as the team would go on to win the game and the series, setting up their championship round matchup with the Bravehearts.
By August, the Sharks were playing with baseballs at the beach just as often as they were playing with beach balls at the ballpark. They danced in the outfield, the base paths, The Lampost, and The Loft. Before games, they’d kick around hacky-sacks with host-siblings, the line between those two words often as hazy as the Shark Tank’s late-night fog.
“It’s been unbelievable,” Matt Chamberlain said. “It’s fun when you win, but there’s a bunch of great guys as well. I stayed with the Cardoza’s. Everybody knows them. They have six people in the house, sometimes seven. It’s a big house, but it’s a lot of fun.”
The only part of the Cardoza family not sad to see Matt go was the grocery bill. Other hosts felt similarly. Tom Rancich from Tisbury hosted two Sharks.
“They’re fabulous. They’re very polite. And they're very athletic,” he said. “But they’re teenagers. They don’t know how to take out a stinking trash can.”
Mr. Rancich made his presence felt at games throughout the year, chiding umpires with his well-known aphorism: “If the Earth were flat, that very well may have been a strike.”
And his advice to players on swing discretion? “Find one you like. But be careful. Before you know it, you’ll be married to her.”
Assistant general manager Tom Horstkotte offered some perspective on the Sharks’ 2018 title run. “They’re successful on the field because of what they do off the field,” he said. “From what I’ve seen in the past, the team with the best chemistry wins and this team has gelled better than any team I’ve seen in the Futures League.”
During the decisive final game of the world series, as rain pelted the Shark Tank and the Worcester Bravehearts huddled in the dugout, Sharks players rolled up their sleeves, formed an assembly line, and powdered the puddling dirt with quick-dry for almost an hour. Unfortunately, the opening of the heavens led to the closing of the Sharks’ season, with the FCBL commissioner eventually awarding the teams a co-championship.
The hundreds of drenched Shark Tank fans, friends, and family who persisted through the deluge did their best to crop the neon-green Worcester boys out of their post-game trophy photos. They weren’t going to let a little rain spoil the Sharks first FCBL championship since 2013.
After the ceremony, the team gathered for one final cheer.
“Fins on three,” they roared. “One. Two. Three. Fins!”
“We spell it with a ‘p-h,’” Sharks pitcher James Sashin corrected.
In that case, it was the perfect way to close out a phintastic season.
Coach Mendez agreed. “From the get-go, I thought this is probably one of the best teams I’ve seen assembled in this league,” he said. “And they lived up to it.”
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