Photo courtesy of FCBL Boxes of baseballs with the Futures League logo are bieing delivered to the summer college circuit's seven franchises, as its eighth season starts on May 30.

NASHUA – The Futures Collegiate Baseball League has been involved in a numbers game over its first seven year that its leader, Commissioner Chris Hall, has constantly fought to win.

“I’ve always said, I don’t know what the right number is,” Hall said, regarding the lineup of teams. “Is it, eight, 10, 12, 14, I don’t know.

“You want to be strong. The seven teams we have now are strong. … I don’t see it as that bad of a situation.”

The situation is this: As the Futures League is set to begin Year Eight in just 10 days from now, the number of teams is the lowest – seven – since its second season of 2012. It actually began with just four in 2011, and in 2016 had as many as 10 teams.

What happened? A brief history: Torrington, which had a small stadium, did not draw, ownership racked up debts, and the league had to fold up the franchise last year, leaving the circuit with nine teams.

Then, two franchises that played in relative sub-standard facilities compared to the rest of the FCBL – Seacoast at Portsmouth’s Leary Field and Wachussett at Leominster’s Doyle Field – did not renew their lease and had no immediate backup plans. Seacoast Mavericks owner Dave Hoyt is apparently trying to build a big baseball facility in Dover, but Hall said that no ground has been broken yet. And Dirt Dawgs owner John Morrison, whose lease wasn’t renewed reportedly due to a dispute with local officials over post-game trash cleanup – told the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise back in November that “We’ll take the next eight months to identify a host community and a new field partner for 2019.”

The perception is one many would typically assign to a league whose number of teams is shrinking. The reality may be that the franchises not playing this year were, in fact, the three lowest in attendance, two of them having played in sub-standard facilites. The big number, attendance, will likely go up in terms of per game average with the league being without those franchises dragging it down. Example: Last year the FCBL,with nine teams, drew a total of 279,802 fans with an average of 1,238 per team. The previous year, with Torrington as the 10th team, the FCBL drew a best 300, 353. But the per game average was lower, 1,133.

“Our average attendance (for summer college ball) was third in the country,” Hall said. “And we may even be able to be as high as second this year.

“I’m not (worried) because our teams are strong and we have good owners. When we were at 10 teams, we gave some locations some chances that probably we shouldn’t have. I’d like to be an even number of teams, but I’d rather be strong.”

That’s the perception the league would like to give, that it’s taking a couple of steps back to take more steps forward.

In some ways that is true – as long, one would think, as it’s temporary.

“Losing teams in a league is never a good thing,” new Silver Knights general manager Rick Muntean said. “In fact, this is the first league I’ve worked in that has lost teams. It’s a little scary.”

However, Muntean feels the league certainly knows what it wants to do.

“I think Chris Hall has a plan,” Muntean said. “I would hate to see the league lose Dave Hoyt. Dave was one of the founding guys and Seacoast for us is a nice little sister city. I’d like to see them come back.

“I think we need to be really aggressive, because you’ve got some really good cities and good ballparks. I think we need to get really aggressive and get back to eight at least, 10 great. Maybe more. This is a level that has blown up over the last 10 years. Summer college, a lot of people realize, this is a good brand of baseball and it can be sold. So we need to get aggressive to see what other cities are out there, and I know Chris has that on its plate.”

Did the league expand too quickly? You could argue either way, but two of the three franchises it has lost – at least for the time being – were part of the original four (Seacoast and Torrington).

It began with Nashua, Seacoast, Torrington and Martha’s Vineyard for 2011. Then, it 2012, it skyrocketed to nine teams, adding Wachusett, Old Orchard, Me., Brockton (Mass.), Pittsfield (Mass.) and North Shore (Lynn, Mass.).

Then, it added Worcester (Mass.) in 2014 to reach the high water mark of 10 teams. Old Orchard was really the first to fail, but the league had a quick solution with a solid ownership group buying it and relocating to successful Bristol, Conn.and it’s quaint Muzzy Field, which has been renovated.

Interestingly, Hoyt and Morrison have both, Hall confirmed, paid membership dues to the FCBL for the 2018 season despite not fielding teams, a sure sign they hope to be back.

Of course, there is another potential problem on the horizon. The Pawtucket Red Sox ownership has had preliminary discussions about moving that Triple A franchise to Worcester, where the Bravehearts have basically been the FCBL’s best business success story to date in a city where independent baseball was a flop.

“We’ve done so well in Worcester,” Hall said, “to have a Triple A team come in and take over the market.”

The hope is, of course, that those talks are being used as leverage by the PawSox to get a new stadium built in Rhode Island.

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One thing the league is determined not to see go backward is the level of play. Hall estimated that about 70 percent of the players have come from Division I schools, but Divison II and III players have also excelled in the FCBL.

The FCBL is waiting to celebrate its first Major League player, and the leading candidate for that is former Nashua Silver Knight Chris Shaw, now in Triple A with the San Francisco Giants. Another, pitcher Tylor Bashlor, is at Double A Binghamton with the Mets but is on their 40-man roster. He was a pitcher for Torrington during the early years of the FCBL.

“I think I’m getting the same quality guys I’ve been getting,” Silver Knights manager and VP of Player Personnel B.J. Neverett said, adding that with some schools like Vanderbilt sending players, other top schools from outside New England such as University of Virginia, etc. are sending players. “We’ve heard of some big schools, not necessarily sending them yet. We’ve got a couple of new schools like Stetson, University of Houston, St. Mary’s.

The FCBL also has a rule that allows colleges to place graduated high school players with the league before they begin their freshman years. But two next month may get drafted in a high round before they even are eligible to play here, including prospective Silver Knight Grant Lavigne of Bedford, and possible Worcester pitcher Makenzie Stills of Fayetteville, Ga. Both were placed in the league by Wake Forest and Vanderbilt, respectively, but if they’re tabbed, say, anywhere in the top five rounds, they likely would go pro.

Muntean, during his time at Bristol, was impressed with what he saw.

“This league, to me, the fundamentals of baseball are pretty solid,” Muntean said. “What I really like about it is the pitchers get the ball, step on the rubber, get the sign, and throw. We don’t need a 20 second (pitch) clock in this league. And for the most part,you don’t see walk-a-thons.

“I like that. I like the fact we don’t kick the ball all over the place. The level of fielding is fine. The power? Not pro, which makes it kind of nice when you see a home run, because it’s a little rarer than it is in the big leagues

“Overall I was impressed with the level of play in this league. And I think the baseball purist would, too.”

Hall can be considered that. So he carefully watches signings and steers players where he can.

“I get nervous every year looking at our rosters,” he said. “Some teams will have kids that don’t have much experience. But then you realize why their college coaches recruited them. Time will tell.”

Of course, the chief competition for players in the older, more well established New England Collegiate Baseball League that has 13 teams. It’s been around since 1993 but is not nearly as stadium-oriented as the FCBL, which is more on a minor league type business format.

But Neverett says it’s still tough to convince some college coaches that the FCBL is a viable option.

“We’re still fighting that stigma,” Neverett said. “College coaches think the NECBL is a better league. The league has been around a long time.”

Players who have played in both, Neverett said, will tell you “Yeah, there’s some good players in (the NECBL) but they don’t play in the stadiums we do, their bus travel is much worse than ours.”

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The seven team league team creates uneven scheduling, for one, with someone having a day off every day. When the league was an even 10, it had declared Mondays as a uniform off day. Also, you have repetition of the same teams coming in, but then again, when it was a two-division, 10-team league, the schedule was unbalanced.

“Down the road, if it stays seven or were to go to six – and I’m not saying it is – that would be a problem,” Muntean said. “And Chris Hall and the rest of us would have to step up and keep trying to find spots. But the fact that Seacoast and Wachusett have paid their dues for this year means they’re invested and they’re going to try to come back. That’s what you have to hope happens.”

As for public perception, what’s the first thing a fan is going to think?

“In trouble, probably,” Muntean said. “But I can tell you you have some solid franchises in this league with some real good owners who do not want this thing to go away. And all of us are going to put a concerted effort into it to make it a lot stronger.”

If we don’t find the next one,” Muntean said, “Maybe we can convince some cities to make the next one.”

“I wouldn’t read into it (reducing to seven) that it’s a bad thing,” Neverett said. “There’s never anybody an any of those places (now gone). You feel you’re at a high school again. So I’m not concerned about any of this at all. The facilities we play in are really good.”

But as for finding new areas, the choices are few if the league wants to make sure it can stay with the stadium format for its franchises.

“I’ve been all over New England,” Neverett said. “When I think about where else can we put a team, there’s not many places you can put a team.”

Perhaps the best scenario is to find an eighth team for 2019, which balances the schedule and may allow the league to back to the universal Monday off. It would be cost effective; Monday games are the poorest draws.

“I told Chris Hall, if we have an eight team lead, it would be a solid eight team league,” Neverett said. “That’s going to be more important than having 12 teams and two that have problems all the time.”

There’s been talk about possibly Milford, Mass.; also Waterbury, Conn. Bristol would love, sources say, a fellow Connecticut partner. Thoughts of New Haven have also cropped up.

“The seven that are playing this summer, they’re all in nice stadiums, the teams are well taken care of,” Neverett said. “And when you come to games, no one (the casual fan) is even going to notice. It’s going to be the same; it’s not like you’re playing the same team three days in a row and you get bored.”

Hall’s – and the league’s – criteria for new franchises: the potential for good community support, good ownership, and a good facility.

“There are so many stadiums out there,” Hall said. “Sometimes the market doesn’t work, the facility doesn’t work, the ownership doesn’t work.”

It all has to fit, and right now, the Futures League is alive and well and ready for Year Eight.

As for worrying about any additions, Hall said, “Right now there’s no rush.”

Just as long as, one could surmise, that there aren’t any more subtractions.