UVA catcher Kyle Teel played eight games for the Harwich Mariners in the Cape Cod Baseball League this summer, before leaving to try out for Team USA. (Anders Saling)
UVA's Jake Gelof swings during a Cape Cod League summer baseball game for the Harwich Mariners. (Braden Reed)
HARWICH, Mass. – Garett Teel’s memory of his season playing baseball with college all-stars in the Cape Cod League included construction work, serving as a counselor at a summer camp, and making himself a ham and cheese sandwich every day for lunch.
Teel’s son, Kyle, the Virginia catcher, had a different experience during his two-week stay at the Cape.
Chicken parmigiana and rice balls for lunch every day at a local deli. A couple of trips to the beach.
“It was so much different than today,” said the elder Teel, a 1989 Los Angeles Dodgers draft pick who spent five years with that organization.
But both Teels had one, shared experience – high level baseball.
Garett Teel played for the Cotuit Kettlers in the summer of 1988, originally going up to the Cape to fill-in as the team’s catcher for two weeks while Dan Wilson, who went on to play for the Seattle Mariners, competed in the College World Series.
But Garett Teel played so well in that stint, the team asked him to stay for the full summer. This summer, Kyle Teel was invited to play for the Harwich Mariners.
“It’s just cool to follow what he did,” said Teel last week, after batting practice before a game against Wareham.
Kyle Teel was joined on the Harwich roster by UVA teammate Jake Gelof.
Like Teel, Gelof had a family connection to the league. His older brother, former UVA star Zack Gelof, had been scheduled to play for the Mariners in 2020, before the league canceled its season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s definitely been something that I’ve always wanted to do,” said the younger Gelof, an All-American this past season after leading UVA hitting .377 with 21 home runs and 81 RBIs.
The host family Jake Gelof stayed with in Harwich owned a farm and he pitched in, feeding goats and collecting chicken eggs. But like Kyle Teel, Gelof said he wasn’t doing any hard labor – not the way Teel’s father and his teammates did in the ‘80s. Gelof spent time at the beach and did a little fishing during his downtime.
Both might have experienced even more leisure around the popular northeast vacation spot, but their stays with Harwich were short.
Teel played just eight games, Gelof seven, before the duo left for Cary, N.C. to try out for the Team USA collegiate national squad.
“The Virginia kids are always just pure baseball guys,” said Harwich coach Steve Englert, a former VCU and Richmond assistant who has coached the Mariners since 2003, winning a pair of league titles. “You know what you’re getting.”
Teel – who, along with his father, made the eight-and-a-half-hour drive from the family’s New Jersey home to Cary on Monday, and Gelof are among 50 of the top college baseball players in the country trying out to play for Team USA’s collegiate squad.
Teel, a freshman All-American in 2021 who batted .276 with 6 home runs and 45 RBIs this year, is one of four players who were with Team USA at last year’s training camp.
Virginia Tech pitcher Drue Hackenberg and outfielder Jack Hurley are also auditioning this week to make the national team.
Players reported Tuesday for training camp, practiced Wednesday and were split into two teams – Stars and Stripes. They will play games Thursday through Monday, one in Cary, three in Durham and the series finale in Charlotte on the Fourth of July. After that, one 26-man team will be selected to represent America at an international tournament -- Honkbalweek Haarlem – in the Netherlands from July 9-15.
The time at the Cape, albeit brief, served as a good tune-up for the players, Gelof said.
“I was just coming up here, getting ready for that, get some at-bats in and then go there and be ready to go,” said Gelof. “I’m just looking to go there and play a good brand of baseball, hit well, play good defense, and learn from some great minds and some great peers there. I’m just going there ready to soak up information and be ready to go.”
If either player doesn’t make the team that is headed to the Netherlands, they have the option of returning to Harwich, Englert said.
“The summer is filled with great opportunities,” said Kyle Teel. “And it goes by so quick.”
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“I couldn’t have written our reunion any better.”
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UVA catcher Kyle Teel played eight games for the Harwich Mariners in the Cape Cod Baseball League this summer, before leaving to try out for Team USA. (Anders Saling)
UVA's Jake Gelof swings during a Cape Cod League summer baseball game for the Harwich Mariners. (Braden Reed)
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