NASHUA – It was the one year in the last 10 that Cam Cook was not a member of the Nashua Silver Knights organization.

That was the summer of 2018, and it was the last time the Silver Knights hosted the Futures Collegiate League All-Star Game.

Cook has been a standout championship player; he’s been Holman Stadium operations manager; and now he’s been the Silver Knights general manager for the last six years. One thing he hasn’t done is host an FCBL All-Star Game, but he’ll get that opportunity this summer with Nashua being awarded the game on Monday.

“It’s exciting,” Cook said. “There’s so many things we haven’t announced yet because we want to roll it out and keep the excitement going all the way into the season. But it’s going to be like a Friday night that’s on a Tuesday. There’s going to be exciting ins and outs of the day.”

Cook was back for a game that season – the opener for the championship ring ceremony, and he missed an All-Star affair that had the theme of Holman Stadium’s 80th birthday. It was actually rained out on the scheduled night and played the next night.

The Silver Knights know they have a ton of planning ahead; they’ve known about the fact they were likely to get the game for awhile so they secured Bellavance Beverage Co.’s Joe Bellavance, to chair an All-Star Game Host Committee that will involve several community leaders. Bellavance and his family’s business has been involved with baseball at Holman for years.

There are a ton of other things involved, but the key for the Knights will be to take it one step at a time.

“It’s simple, in the sense that ‘Hey, it’s like a Friday night game, you put your biggest promos on it,'” Cook said. “But I guess the interesting thing is it’s not a Friday night. … We’re going to get over 1,000 here just because we’re playing baseball at Holman Stadium on a Friday night. But Tuesday – you’ve got to motivate someone to come out on a Tuesday. You’ve got to make it motivating enough to bring those people out so we’re going to have a lot of good things. We’re going to try not to start it too, too early so people don’t have to burn a PTO day, just sneak out of work an hour early and you get to see all the festivities.”

The FCBL All-Star Game, Cook says, “is kind of no joke at this point” because of the quality of player.

“During my fantasy baseball drafts I was like ‘That’s a Futures League guy, that’s a Futures League guy, another Futures League guy, Sal Frelick (Brewers), Mickey Gasper (Red Sox), it’s just legitimate MLB baseball players. They were here, and they were playing in All-Star games here. Not that long ago.”

Besides trying to entice fans, Cook and his staff have to secure advertising, sponsors, etc.

“A lot of it is like the normal games,” he said. “Having the Home Run Derby is going to give us an element of kids are out there shagging balls, so we’ll certainly have a package that captures that. We’ll have a brewfest type thing – a beer garden in the outfield for the Home Run Derby up until first pitch so people are entertained even when there’s no balls flying through the air.”

Cook says there may be live music out in that beer garden area. He wants to create a block party type atmosphere before the game.

“It’s going to be a really good thing to get out an hour, hour and a half early from work and come on down,” he said. “The game is going to start right at 6:03 so it’s not like you’re going to be here in the wee hours of the morning and not be ready for work the next day. It will be a very busy five-hour event. We’d rather have that than space it across two days.”

That’ what Cook is most excited about – a day/night of celebrating baseball and that’s it. He loves the fact that it’s a one-day event; usually one of the two days there would be a “pro day” event during which players would work out for Major League Scouts. But in discussions with many involved, including scouts, the FCBL will likely instead have a FCBL Prospects game in late June at another league city to be announced at a later date.

The All-Star game ticket is built into the season ticket holders package and that’s the reason they haven’t been printed yet, so those fans won’t have to make two trips. The suites are available as they would be for any other game on a first-come, first-serve basis, Cook said. And All-Star Game tickets are available on the team’s website now, and they include the HR Derby, Beer Garden access, etc. Cook said it’s to be determined yet whether there will be post-game fireworks. “We may, we may,” Cook said. “It’s possible.”

It’s also possible, Cook said, that there will be a baseball-related special guest for the Home Run Derby. That news will be one o those things he wants to filter out. Plus there are other sponsorship deals involved that also include charitable donations, etc. Those will be announced later as part of the team’s special rollout of information regarding the game. There may be other special guests as well. The Silver Knights are clearly set to have some fun with this.

City officials, Cook said, have been in favor of having the game. It’s not something they lobby for, he said, “but once we bring to them ‘Hey, we’re going to host the All-Star Game’, they’re as supportive as you can possibly be. They’re very excited.”

Cook hopes the team can do something with Great American Downtown to highlight some of the eateries, etc. in the downtown area.

“We’re going to have six teams not from Nashua coming,” he said. “Whether they’re staying Monday into Tuesday or Tuesday night, or stay here Wednesday, hotels are going to be kicking and pretty busy with all these guys staying over here. And it’s always cool when the Mayor (James Donchess) is fired up about it.”

The Silver Knights want the entire city and surrounding area to be “fired up”. In addition to the 2018 celebration of Holman, Nashua hosted the FCBL’s inaugural All-Star Game back in 2012, the league’s second year. In 2011, there were just four teams and the FCBL was in its infancy. But another major All-Star that Holman hosted was professional: the 2003 independent Atlantic League All-Star Game that drew a crowd of 4,000 with the MVP the late Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, who was a member of the now-defunct Newark Bears. The Atlantic League is still going strong.