Shelter Island Team Added to Hamptons Collegiate Baseball

The and the will have a neighboring team this coming summer.

Members of the approved on Monday the use of their fields for a to the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League.

The team, which does not yet have a nickname, is the seventh in the league, joining the North Fork Ospreys, Riverhead Tomcats, Southampton Breakers, Sag Harbor Whalers, defending champion Westhampton Aviators, and the newly created Center Moriches Battlecats, which joined the East End league in November. The 2012 season starts up this coming June.

“In the times we discussed expansion over the years, Shelter Island was always one of the first locales brought up,” said the baseball league’s president Brett Mauser. “It’s a wonderful community and the setting is picturesque, so we’re thrilled to bring high-level baseball and free family entertainment to the island this summer and for summers to come.”

The Shelter Island team will be managed by Joe Burke, who starred at St. John’s University before playing seven seasons professionally, including two in the New York Yankees farm system. As with other established teams, Shelter Island players will stay with local families and host free baseball clinics for children in the community.