Wareham Gatemen president reflects on the season

Aug 10, 2021

The Wareham Gatemen’s season concluded on Aug. 3 with a 3-1 win against the Falmouth Commodores. Although the season wasn’t the team’s strongest, with an overall record of 14-18-6, Gatemen President Tom Gay said he was happy with the season.

“It was unusual, but overall it went very well, considering everything,” Gay said.

Due to the covid pandemic, the season was shortened, and players were living in the dorms at UMass Dartmouth rather than with host families in Wareham.

Gay said that the weather wasn’t on the Gatemen’s side this season, with rain forecasted for many of the home games. That decreased attendance, he said. 

The team was composed of “a group of young men that we’re very proud of,” said Gay. “They all got along and they all did what they had to do without complaints regarding covid.”

Players were vaccinated and were tested every other week for covid.

“As far as play, we weren’t happy about some of what went on, but that’s baseball,” Gay said. “We weren’t the luckiest team. Some games could have been won with luck on our side, and we didn’t seem to get that.”

Gay said if baseball games were only seven innings long, the team would be nearly undefeated. 

“We lost a lot of games in the final innings,” Gay said. Sometimes that was due to excellent play by the other team, and other times due to errors made by the Gatemen, Gay said.

“A lot of the games were exciting games, but obviously, we would have liked the end result to be more favorable,” Gay said.

One success this season was the Gatemen’s first movie night, which featured a showing of “The Sandlot” on the team’s new digital scoreboard. Gay says that he hopes to host more movie nights next summer.

Next summer will also see the team hiring a completely new coaching staff. 

Overall, Gay said, the season was a success.

“It was a fun summer, so that’s what counts,” Gay said. “We’re here to have fun and enjoy baseball.”