Article By: Joseph McLaughlin

Before Saturday night’s game at Spillane Field, the Wareham Gatemen were awarded the 2025 CCBL Commissioner’s Cup, the franchise’s first in 13 years, with the last time being in August of 2012.

The Commissioner’s Cup is awarded by the CCBL to the team that best exemplifies excellence both on and off the field, from players and coaches to interns, volunteers, and host families. That excellence includes maintaining the highest level of integrity and professionalism from every aspect of the organization that contributes to ensuring and enhancing the CCBL’s championship prestige.

“I am very proud of the organization. I've said it over the last couple of years and years before that, we have the hardest-working, loyal, dependable, and committed volunteers. They are awesome and I am so glad to win it for them,” said Wareham Gatemen President Glen Hannington.

Players, interns, members of the board of directors, and their families gathered at home plate to be honored for the award. Every one of them played a role in making Wareham Gatemen baseball what it is today in 2025, from the renovations to Spillane Field to the engagement of fans at home games. 

“We do a lot here. We have a lot of volunteers who work, which is why we start at 6:00 p.m. instead of 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.. And of course, as President, you see what everybody does, from concessions to sponsorships to merchandise to all the interns to baseball operations and all the work that the board does. I see it firsthand, and you have to balance the fact of being a volunteer and treating them right. It's just a group of people who are fully committed,” said Hannington. 

The celebration didn’t stop there as Wareham’s General Manager, Jay Spinale, was named the 2025 CCBL John Wylde General Manager of the Year. This is an award given to a general manager who is passionate, dedicated, and serves as a positive guide to others in the organization by ensuring their team’s outstanding performance.

“You really appreciate the honor, but I would tell you that it also makes you realize just how many other people go into being a part of that,” said Spinale. “I’m one person, but the support and all of the efforts that are made by everyone within the organization, that's really what makes that award. So it isn't necessarily the work that I've done, it's the work that all of the people within the organization do to make our team in our organization, something I really think is special.”

“Jay has a tough job. It's a 12-month-a-year job, like for all of us, but for him more so. His job takes up a lot of time. He works with Ryan and the coaching staff, baseball ops, and they make a lot of decisions, framing the roster for the coming year, and he's done, obviously a terrific job, and obviously the rest of the league recognized that,” said Hannington.

Spinale has been a fan of the Gatemen for over 45 years and loves working with Gatemen Field Manager Ryan Smyth to put the best roster together and deliver a winning product. He also had the privilege of meeting and knowing the late John Wylde, whom the award is named after.

“I've been watching the game and here, and I've watched a lot of great players. I remember seeing in 1988 an infield with Mo Vaughn at first, and Chuck Knoblauch at shortstop. I didn't know the award that I received was named after John Wylde. I knew John Wylde when he was here, and he was like a real legend with the Gateman and the Cape League. You know, he's somebody that was an innovator, an architect of his own statistics, and a statistician group he started,” said Spinale.

“In my short time with Wareham, how far we've come as an organization, from the field, from everything top to bottom, has been amazing. I feel like I have one of the best GMs, if not the best GM in the league, and it just goes to show the effort that everyone's putting in here, across the board. There's no job too big, too small for anybody here, which is really awesome. And we're expanding. We're growing. We're reaching out to the community. A lot of positive feedback. Our players are involved in that as well. So again, I feel like, in my mind, it is very well deserving,” said Smyth. 

Under the leadership of Hannington and Spinale, the Gatemen were able to return to the postseason for the first time in five years and punch their ticket for the second consecutive season this summer. However, both of them emphasized the importance of the team of people around them, the community, the volunteers, the host families, the interns, the sponsors, every literacy night event, food pantry work, and every social media post promoting the team. 

“It just makes me feel emotional, too, because a tear can come to my eye. I truly feel that without everybody's efforts, we wouldn't have been here tonight. We've always focused on the players and getting them ready for the pros, but I like pressing for the interns. I like reading about how they moved on to ESPN. They've moved on to radio and TV stations across the country. I take great pride in that aspect as well, and being associated with only 10 teams and the Cape Cod Baseball League, which is very elite, it's an honor to be the president of one of those 10 teams,” said Hannington.

“A lot of people see the team on the field, but they don't understand how important it is to have the housing community making sure that we have enough beds for everybody, having Matt Merrick here every day in the winter to make sure that the field renovations were done, and having people that don't ever get to see any of the game, because they're up in the they're up cooking hamburgers, they're in the concession stands, and they're working hard behind the scenes,” said Spinale. 

Being awarded one of these awards is a great achievement for any CCBL team, but to have both awards given to the Gatemen in one season shows the commitment and passion of the Wareham Gatemen organization and the greater Wareham community that supports this team every summer.