Last month, the Hyannis Harbor Hawks of the Cape Cod League announced that Strawberry Crest baseball’s head coach Eric Beattie would be serving as the team’s interim head coach this summer.
The Cape Cod League is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league, and one of – if not the – premier summer leagues in collegiate baseball. Beginning in 1885, the Cape Cod League boasts over 1,000 former players who have gone on to play at the Major League level and features 10 teams with a 40-game season that runs between June and August. But this is far from Beattie’s first experience with the league. Beattie spent one year in the Cape Cod League with the Bourne Braves while pitching at the University of Tampa in 2003. In his lone season, Beattie amassed a 4-0 record and allowed just two earned runs en route to a league-leading 0.39 earned run average, the third-lowest in league history, while striking out 51 batters over 46 innings. His stellar season earned him a spot on the All-League team and he was presented with the league’s annual Outstanding Pitcher of the Year award.
“I remember a lot from that season,” Beattie said. “It was a different town, my first time living on my own, facing different hitters. I went up there with the goal of throwing a better changeup so I remember specifically doing that. Just taking in new scenery, competing against new players and having fun.”
Beattie would later be inducted into the Cape Cod League’s Hall of Fame in 2014, the same year he was inducted into UT’s Hall of Fame.
“It was special,” Beattie said. “It was a really special year for me and my family, my boys were able to go. The UT and Cape Cod inductions were right there within two months of each other so it was a really special year. Both of those things meant a lot to me and our life.”
Beattie mentioned reconnecting with his former coach from the Bourne Braves at his Cape Cod League Hall of Fame induction ceremony, keeping in contact and ultimately leading to this new opportunity.
“The coach that coached me came to my Hall of Fame induction in 2014,” Beattie said. “We reconnected and stayed in touch, I’ve seen him at some of the national coaches clinics. We’ve kept in touch and conversations just kind of led to other conversations and connections and like anything else, you try to develop and maintain good relationships and usually positive things happen.”
After his stellar career at the University of Tampa, Beattie was selected by the Detroit Tigers in the second round of the 2004 MLB Draft and played across multiple levels in the Tigers’ and Boston Red Sox’ minor league systems through the 2007 season.
Following his playing career, Beattie has served as the head coach at Strawberry Crest since the school opened in 2009, with back-to-back FHSAA Final Four appearances in 2018 and 2019 and a State Championship appearance in 2019. And with the Chargers’ season in full swing, that’s where much of Beattie’s focus has been. He says that he really hasn’t had a chance to think about what the summer in Hyannis will bring, but that he’s excited for the new opportunity.
“I’ve thought about it a little bit but right now I’m so focused on Strawberry Crest that I haven’t quite gotten to that part yet,” Beattie said about how his experiences in Cape Cod can help the players that he’ll be coaching this year. “I’ve thought about it a little bit. I just want to give them a fun environment to play in and try to give them some little pointers here and there that my coaches gave me while I was there that helped me out.”