The Martha’s Vineyard Sharks, the Island’s championship summer collegiate baseball team, is mired in a court dispute with its parent Futures Collegiate Baseball League over plans to switch to another league by next summer.
The Sharks want to move to the New England College Baseball League by 2019 and informed the Futures League of its intentions in September, according to documents filed in Middlesex Superior Court. But in a complaint filed against the Sharks, the Futures League claims the team violated league bylaws that require teams to demonstrate financial hardship and obtain a two-thirds vote from the board of directors in order to leave.
The league wants the team to pay a $100,000 exit fee and forfeit play for the next two summers.
Attorneys for the Sharks claim the bylaws were never signed and are not enforceable.
In October the Hon. William Barrett, an associate justice of the superior court, denied a motion by the league for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented the team from beginning its exit while the case is pending.
Attorneys for the Sharks have filed a motion to dismiss the case. Oral arguments were heard in December, according to court documents.
The Futures League is a seven-team, wooden bat league with franchises based out of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The league was founded in 2010 with the Sharks as one of its four charter franchises. For the past nine seasons, the Sharks have played approximately 50 games in June, July and August against teams in Brockton, Worcester and Nashua, among others.
Last summer the Sharks shared the league championship with the Worcester Bravehearts after a final game was called early in a heavy rainstorm.
In one court pleading, attorneys for the Sharks said that “moving to a new league . . . would provide its’ players, predominantly from New England, a greater opportunity to be seen by Major League Baseball scouts.”
The New England Collegiate Baseball League was founded in the early 1990s and has 12 teams divided into north and south divisions. The south division has teams based out of coastal Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The north division includes teams in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.
Although the Cape Cod League is considered the top collegiate baseball summer league in the country, the NECBL is consistently listed on baseball recruiting websites as one of the top three college baseball leagues in the Northeast and one of the top 10 in the country.
Historically, the NECBL has produced an annual slew of Major League Baseball draft picks. League alumni include former Red Sox pitcher Craig Breslow, former Twins closer Joe Nathan, Rockies catcher Chris Ianetta, and Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams.
The Sharks play their home games at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School baseball field in Oak Bluffs.
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