October has begun,and this is the month for baseball’s last hurrah, on the field at least.

So we’ll give you a few baseball thoughts, local, regional, and national as Major League Baseball’s postseason begins this week:

— For the first time in 30 years, MLB’s postseason is without all three teams at once: the Cardinals, Red Sox and Yankees. That’s simply amazing, it’s been a stretch of consistency. The Cardinals have just been steady, the Yankees have had their moments of missing the postseason (2016 the last time), and of course we all already know about the Red Sox. And, of course, the Red Sox also suffered a tragic loss with the passing of Tim Wakefield, a horrible ending to a bad season.

—- It was a pretty definitive answer from Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who said last week “I’ll be here next year.” Said it at least twice. He’s a manager with one year left on his contract with a team that has no baseball operations head and has finished last two straight years.

So that person, unless the hire is internal (Ed Romero?), will not get to choose their own manager if ownership has already decreed Cora comes with the job. Cora and former VP Chaim Bloom clearly didn’t see things the same way. A baseball head needs to hire his own guy from the start. That’s why the Mets fired Buck Showalter. But there was Cora sitting with team president Sam Kennedy going over plans for next season with the media on Monday.

It’s not easy to begin with a new chief, because if it’s done right the whole baseball system changes, through the minor leagues all the way up top. This organization will have had four in the last 10 years. No wonder they’re where they’re at.

—- There was an interesting release sent out in the last couple of weeks by the Futures Collegiate Baseball League – well, basically, forwarding a release by one of its teams: It announced that the Brockton Rox would be back in 2024, but that Campanelli Stadium would also be home to an independent minor league baseball team in the 16-team Frontier League.

The FL regular season was 96 games, so that’s likely 48 home dates, plus the 32 home dates with the FCBL, gives Brockton 80 home dates, or basically the equivalent of a full MLB season. Campanelli has undergone some renovations over the last couple of years but the Rox drew an average of just 793 fans per game, and the team was basically an absolute disaster, finishing an abysmal 13-47 and helping to keep your own Nashua Silver Knights (24-40) out of last place.

So the bottom line apparently is that Rox owner Brian Kahn, who bought the team three years ago from old friend Chris English, didn’t feel it was worth it to just have an FCBL team that over the last few years has drawn flies.

“Adding a professional baseball team. … ensures that our community will have access to high quality baseball, in varying forms every day of summer in 2024.”

Good grief, can you imagine if there were two teams using Holman? The market would be completely oversaturated. Of course FCBL Commissioner Joe Paolucci had to play along.

“…Now Campanelli Stadium will be bringing twice as much excitement to their fans,” he said in the release. “The Futres League is thrilled for Brian as he embarks on this new venture.”

The Rox have been in the FCBL since 2012. It’s one of two close teams geographically to Nashua (Worcester being the other) and it’s a shame the FCBL lost North Shore (Lynn, Mass.).

—- Speaking of the Silver Knights, they are doing some interesting off-season things with young local ballplayers, they have a “Future Knights Training Program” and will also have two weekend clinics, Columbus Day and Veterans Day at the Walter Bat Training Center in Nashua. Check with the Knights website or call their office for more info.

—- Of course our MLB predictions were waaaaay off, as we said the Guardians and Padres would be in the World Series. Neither came close to making the playoffs. That’s why we always say clip, save, and laugh. Sigh.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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