75 Years of Cotuit Kettleers Memories
By Roy Reiss

2022 will be a very special year for the Cotuit Kettleers as we celebrate the 75th year of baseball on Cape Cod. Many people have contributed over the past 75 years-players, donors, house parents, coaches, volunteers and of course the many fans who have flocked to Lowell Park to watch and cheer for the Kettleers. This is another in the series as we recall the many memories people have of the Cotuit Kettleers!

Michael Segel-Intern For as long as I can remember, I always spent a great deal of my school year anxiously anticipating the start of summer. There is nothing inherently unique about a child wanting to spend their time outside in the sun instead of doing homework, yet I believed there was something especially exhilarating about my particular summer routine. My family and I have always gone to Cape Cod for the summer where we were close to the town of Cotuit and historical Lowell Park. I first became involved with the team through the summer camp that Coach Roberts and the Kettleers organized. It was the perfect environment for a kid who was quickly becoming obsessed with anything to do with baseball. I would watch any game that was on television and I was constantly throwing tennis balls off of the roof of my house to see what sorts of amazing diving catches I could make. It was an incredible opportunity for a young kid to be able to take this energy to a summer camp with college baseball players. Even though the players towered over the campers, you would never have guessed it while watching a game of “pickle” or wiffleball. Everyone involved could act like a little kid and play backyard baseball the way it was intended to be played. At night, my family and I would then go to watch the same men from these wiffleball games blast balls into the forest or throw 95 mph fastballs with ease in real games.

I went to the camp until I was a teenager at which point I began to work for the Kettleers as an intern. In this position, I was given

the task of operating the scoreboard during home games which truly never felt like work for a moment. I could watch baseball games from an unbelievable vantage point and my only responsibility was to pay attention to what was happening. I had the privilege of doing this job for three summers as well as working an additional summer as a scorekeeper for the Cape Cod Baseball League. I spent all four years alongside the Kettleers’ public address announcer Roy Reiss whose friendship, engaging conversations, and knowledge of sports I am very grateful for.I endured the most devastating hardship of my life less than a month after the conclusion of the 2017 season with the death of my father from lymphoma. He had been an avid sports fan just like me and I cherished watching Kettleers games with him.After I had become the scoreboard operator, he had always been sure to stand on the first base side of the stands with the Flaherty family where he could see me. The loss was incomprehensible for me and I knew that going to Kettleers games was never going to be the same again. Despite this reality, I was blown away by the compassion Coach Roberts and the rest of the organization showed towards me and my family in the aftermath of my father’s death. The first base stands that my father stood in front of during the last summers of his life are now dedicated to him. While I know he would have wanted to see many more Kettleers games, my father would have loved to know that he is now a part of Lowell Park. He is greatly missed by many in the Cotuit community because of how ingrained in our lives the Kettleers have become. For nearly fifteen years, there has been no such thing as a summer without Kettleers baseball for me. Whether I was there to play baseball, keep score, or simply watch a game with my family and friends, Lowell Park has always been special for me. Kettleers baseball was something that my father and I bonded over and it helped me overcome the adversity I felt after his untimely passing.