| Newport Gulls Founded in 1998 Newport, RI |
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The Newport Gulls are a wooden-bat, summer collegiate baseball team based in Newport, Rhode Island. The Newport Gulls Baseball Club is a member of both the New England Collegiate Baseball League and the NECBL's East Division. From 2001 to the present, the Gulls have played at Cardines Field.
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An NECBL expansion team, the club was founded in Cranston in 1998. The Gulls have been one of the NECBL's most successful teams since their inception, winning 4 Fay Vincent, Jr. Cups as champions of the NECBL, and seven Division Titles.
While most teams playing at Cardines average attendance in the dozens or, at most, a few hundred per game, the Newport Gulls, since moving to Newport in 2001, have helped to bring the field back to its former glory days of the mid-twentieth century, usually attracting over two thousand fans for a home game. During the 2004 season alone, the Gulls attracted over 50,000 fans through just 26 home games, with sellout crowds in excess of 3,000 people. Following the 2006 season, the Gulls set a team and 2006 league record for regular season home attendance, totaling 42,424 after 21 games.[1]
Newport Gulls games often feature fan participation activities between innings, along with concessions, low ticket prices, and a safe atmosphere. This reputation has only added to their popularity, not only among tourists passing through Newport, but with many Aquidneck Island children and families, as well. The active crowds, historic atmosphere, and competent club management have allowed the Gulls to recruit some of the best college baseball players in the nation, with talent rivaling the Cape Cod League. Since 2001, Cardines Field has hosted the Gulls through 6 regular season Division titles, 7 postseason Division titles, and 4 league championships, along with other notable awards, such as the RI Governor's Cup. The Gulls have also begun an annual tradition of playing Team USA in an exhibition around Independence Day every July, in what is often a sellout game. In July 2005, the Gulls hosted the NECBL All-Star Game and Home Run Derby at Cardines, which was a major event for the park, the league, and the City of Newport.
The Gulls and the NECBL as a whole have received national attention recently with the addition of live Internet video webcasts to the normal audio webcast of games, effectively doing so at minimum cost in infrastructure. On opening night of the 2006 NECBL season, the Newport Gulls were the first to implement this new technology, bringing summer collegiate baseball, as well as Cardines Field, into a new era.[2] These changes and improvements were implemented under the direction of team Director of Broadcast Operations Nicholas Lima from 2005 - 2010.
This attention is more than welcome for Gulls players, who, as amateur college athletes, hope to be drafted by Major League Baseball teams. The recent surge in recognition and popularity of the Newport Gulls organization throughout the professional baseball world has provided for an increase in the number of Gulls players to be drafted every year.
The following is a list of Gulls attendance figures at Cardines Field dating back to the 2001 season, when the team began using the facility.
| Season | Game Avg. | Season Total | Lge. Rk. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001[1] | 676 | 11,491 | 4th |
| 2002[2] | 792 | 16,640 | 5th |
| 2003[3] | 1,200 | 21,604 | 4th |
| 2004[4] | 1,798 | 35,963 | 2nd |
| 2005[5] | 1,687 | 33,759 | 3rd |
| 2006[6] | 2,020 | 42,424 | 1st |
| 2007[7] | 2,010 | 42,225 | 1st |
| 2008[8] | 2,101 | 44,123 | 1st |
| 2009[9] | 2,277 | 45,547 | 1st |
| 2010[10] | 2,284 | 45,683 | 1st |
| Year | Division Semi-Finals | Division Finals* | NECBL Championship Series | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Mill City All-Americans | W (2-1) | Keene Swamp Bats | L (1-2) | ||
| 2001 | Eastern Tides | W (2-1) | Keene Swamp Bats | W (2-1) | ||
| 2002 | North Adams Steeplecats | W (2-1) | Danbury Westerners | W (2-0) | Keene Swamp Bats | W (2-0) |
| 2003 | Danbury Westerners | W (2-1) | Torrington Twisters | L (0-2) | ||
| 2004 | Torrington Twisters | W (2-1) | Riverpoint Royals | W (2-1) | Sanford Mainers | L (1-2) |
| 2005 | Danbury Westerners | W (2-0) | North Adams Steeplecats | W (2-0) | Vermont Mountaineers | W (2-0) |
| 2006 | Manchester Silkworms | W (2-1) | Torrington Twisters | L (0-2) | ||
| 2007 | North Adams Steeplecats | W (2-1) | Torrington Twisters | W (2-0) | Vermont Mountaineers | L (0-2) |
| 2008 | Manchester Silkworms | W (2-0) | Pittsfield Dukes | W (2-0) | Sanford Mainers | L (0-2) |
| 2009 | New Bedford Bay Sox | W (2-0) | Sanford Mainers | W (2-1) | Vermont Mountaineers | W (2-1) |
| 2010 | Laconia Muskrats | W (2-0) | North Shore Navigators | L (1-2) | ||
| 2011 | Laconia Muskrats | L (0-2) | ||||
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