For the 99% of us who can't finagle/afford Red Sox tickets, it's nice to remember that the Cape Cod Baseball League exists just an hour or so south of us. A perennial waystation on the way to the big leagues (Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek and Kevin Youkilis are among current Sox who spent time there), the league's free admission, volunteer spirit and small-town feel make a great time machine to the fuzzy golden age of baseball.

In 2008, though, that simply will not do.

Major League Baseball has put the smack down on the CCBL, saying it's going to withhold its token financial support of the league unless they start playing ball. First, there are six CCBL teams with nicknames the same as MLB teams. Even though they're unaffiliated, teams like the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, Orleans Cardinals and Harwich Mariners (which predate the Seattle Mariners by 50 years) will have to order all their equipment and sell all their merchandise through MLB-licensed (read: much more pricey) vendors.

Also, according to the article, "Non-clothing items such as coffee mugs and teddy bears that are not available through MLB vendors could no longer be sold". Good thing, too; you'd hate to think that a Chatham A's teddy bear produced and sold in Chatham could be circulating out there without Bud Seling getting his cut.

The four CCBL teams with neutral nicknames (we're partial to the Falmouth Commodores) probably won't be affected; one solution is for the six offending clubs to change their names, but it's too late to do that for this summer's season. The CCBL is trying to come up with some solution that will keep Cape merchants in the loop.

Image from Wikipedia. The mention of some of the related team names is for purposes of information and commentary only, and are not an attempt to thwart or devalue MLB's ownership of said team names.