Adult Baseball League Expanding
By Chris Mascaro - Southampton Press
Last October, as Yadier Molina’s home run in the top of the ninth inning sailed over the left field fence in Shea Stadium, propelling the St. Louis Cardinals to a seven-game victory over the Mets in the National League Championship Series, Met fans went into a state of shock as their World Series hopes went down the drain.
Scott Green wasn’t one of those people. Although the 52-year-old is a Queens native, Green is a lifelong Cardinals fan. The basement of his Hampton Bays home says as much, with two autographed Stan Musial jerseys and tons of other memorabilia, including a ticket to the final game of the 1964 World Series, which St. Louis won in seven games over the “other” New York club.
But regardless of his allegiance, Green’s sole mission now is to preach the gospel of baseball. His cathedrals are stationed around not just the U.S., but also the world, as he runs Play at the Plate, a league for adult baseball players that holds tournaments at the best baseball fields throughout the world. It’s a Field of Dreams in a sense, except that the tournaments are moved to many different locations throughout the year. All the adults have to do is pay, and then they can play. According to Green, the
four-year-old company is a testament to his love for baseball, and also his desire to provide a league for adults still interested in playing hardball.
“I’ve always loved baseball,” he said. “It’s been a major part of my sporting life.”
In 1994, Green, like many other men his age, frequented local softball leagues. But a friend turned him on to a league that held hardball tournaments every year at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. Green accompanied his friend to one on a whim, and “fell in love with it again. It was instant.”
As the summers passed in Cooperstown, and the leadership of the league changed hands on numerous occasions, Green realized that if he could organize the events better—and eventually expand—that he was sitting on a cash cow. He was right.
Play at the Plate has thrived since he took it over, with successful events being run every year in Palm Beach, Florida—the winter home of his beloved Cardinals—Cooperstown, and even far off places like Labatt Park in London, Ontario, which is the oldest continually operated baseball field in the world.
Green is also branching out, with a 12-day trip to Holland, Belgium, and Germany, scheduled for the end of September. He also plans the Central Park Classic, which will be held at the beginning of August in New York City.
“Our goal is to bring people together in nice parks,” he said. “They have to have some historical significance to them. It has to be a premium field. We’re bringing people together through baseball.”
While the focus of the trip is always the games, the tournaments allow players—some of whom bring the rest of their families, some of whom don’t—to travel the country and see parks in places they’ve never been before.
The players take the games seriously, but Green notes that nobody who comes out is uber-competitive. In fact, league rules state that stealing is not permitted, runners cannot advance on passed balls, and only wood bats are allowed.
In just a few short years, the league has grown immensely. Green quit his job as a landscaper to focus on the league full time, and he now has a mailing list of thousands of names. He keeps everyone abreast of upcoming events by mailing out postcards and maintaining a website (www.playattheplate.org), which he said receives hundreds of hits per day. He also is constantly in search of new venues, so he noted, “I’ve done more traveling in the last three years, than I have all my life. It’s a lot.”
The work has all paid off though, as the response grows with each new event. And the desire to play isn’t just from younger men.
Sure, many 30-year-olds suit up (in fact, you have to be at least 30 to pitch), but Green noted that nine players over 60 will lace up their spikes for this weekend’s tournament in Canada.
“It’s great to see older ballplayers who can still play, who still enjoy the game,” he said. “They appreciate the fact that someone like me gives them an opportunity to play.”
The events are usually over long weekends, so the players generally have to take some time off from work to attend. The cost for domestic tournaments is normally in the $425 range, and players are expected to play for their own transportation and hotel accommodations. So the trips aren’t a cheap endeavor.
At the ballpark, Green makes sure everything is taken care of, from the equipment, to the grounds, to even having a cooler of beer waiting after the game. Each player gets their own uniform and has his name announced during the game, and everyone is entitled to take some batting practice hacks beforehand.
Green noted that the batting practice time is almost as fun for the men as the game, as it often turns into a bull session about what hot spots to hit in town—especially when the tournament is in places like Palm Beach and Las Vegas.
“You want the baseball day to be done at 4 o’clock or so, and then you go out and enjoy the city you go to,” he said. “Go out, have dinner, talk baseball, have a couple of beers. It’s all about coming together, and then the next morning, you wake up, and start playing again.” Scott Hansen, Green’s righthand man in the business, often finds things for families to do when the players are on the field. Hansen, who is also in charge of merchandising and mailing, makes sure that the events run smoothly Thus far, he hasn’t received many complaints.
“If the wives don’t want to watch baseball after four days, you’ve got to give them something to do,” he said.
All games are seven innings, and there are generally about seven contests packed into a weekend. So the players—especially the older ones—are quite tired after four or five days of baseball.
But, as Green said, they all come away thinking it’s worth it. Because when they return home—to California, or New York, or Alabama—it’s back to the real world, and away from their baseball fantasies.
Though Green’s business is based in Hampton Bays, the collection of regular players is quite cosmopolitan, with people hailing from all across the country. “This is a national business,” he said. “I’ve had about two or three guys from the East End come to a Play at the Plate event. They’re softball players who are scared to play some hardball, for whatever reason.”
So Green doesn’t target the area in his advertising. Rather, he posts ads on Google, MSN and USA Today, and they get thousands of hits daily.
Like any new small business, Green experienced some financial difficulties in the beginning. At the first tournament, only 36 players showed up to make four teams. But he knew once he got past the initial struggle, the league would catch on. That dream has come to fruition in recent months, as 125 people played in a recent event.
This is a time of growth and expansion for Play at the Plate, with new tournaments sprouting up at every locale imaginable, allowing men to continue to come together to play a boy’s game, and to enjoy one another’s company in a vacation spot.
For these men, it’s baseball heaven.
Scott Green, right, has created Play at the Plate, an adult baseball league with the help of Scott Hansen. CHRIS MASCARO
