Nashua Silver Knights owner John Creedon, Jr. holds up the FCBL Champioship Trophy, surrounded by general manager Cam Cook, left, manager Kyle Jackson and assistant GM Katie Arend last August at Vermont's Centennial Field. Arend has left the team to take a position with St. John's Prep in Danvers, Mass. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Nashua Silver Knights general manager Cam Cook got an email from the Futures Collegiate Baseball League Thursday morning letting him know the 2023 schedule was about to be released.

He cringed. He was alone in the office and he knew what that meant: the phones would be ringing off the hook.

“I was like what?” he said laughing. “It’s a good problem to have but it felt like the stock market, I was running around taking notes making sure I had the info for people.”

Cook figured he’d have a week or two more to get a system in place because assistant general manager Katie Arend resigned to take a job with St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Mass.

“She was so good at the back end stuff, including the ticket system,” he said. “Is it rocket science? No. but it’s tedious. Then the phone was ringing and your email was starting to fill up.”

The Knights are set to have their Holman Stadium opener – which will be their fourth game of the year – on Saturday, May 27. However, Cook said that will NOT be the night of the ring ceremony, that they will be looking more toward possibly the next Friday, June 2.

“It felt like tradition was opening up on a Thursday or a Friday in Nashua,” Cook said. “So we’re thinking our ring ceremony will be that first Friday game. It gives players that extra week to get back from school. You know how thin the rosters are that first week; I want the players who are getting rings to be able to be at the ring ceremony.

“A Saturday Opening Day will be interesting. I think more kids will be able to come; when we’ve opened on a Thursday, they’re still very much in school.”

LEAGUE STAYS PAT

The league will come back with the same eight teams as last season, including Pittsfield – which still has issues with Wahconah Park badly needing repairs or even to be razed and replaced – rather than add any franchises.

“This is the first year there hasn’t really been a lot of (talk) that so-and-so may be coming in,” Cook said. “I think it’s because there are some potential teams on the horizon, but everyone knew it could be something we could pull off for 2024. And we could have (the schedule) done early next year.”

PLAYOFFS STAY THE SAME

With eight teams, the playoffs will be the same as last season: the top four teams, with Nos. 1 and 4, and Nos. 2 and 3, squaring off in a best-of-three semifinal with the winners in a best-of-three final.

Cook said there was talk of going back to six teams making the post season with the top two seeds getting a bye and the next four playing a one-game playoff – that system was used for a few years – but “with 10 teams that’s exactly what you do, but with eight, only two teams are not getting in.” There was also having the idea of making the higher seed needing only one win in the first round and the lower seed needing two wins, creating doubleheader. “We were making it way too complicated,” he said.

AREND WILL BE MISSED

Cook and owner John Creedon, Jr. have just started interviews to fill Arend’s position and hope to have someone in place later this month.

“Katie did so much we don’t expect someone to step in right away and do the things she did,” Cook said. “Sales and ticketing system are the main things we’re looking for.”

Arend left the Knights to work at St. John’s as Advancement Events and Communications Coordinator, and is missed already.

“I think she felt that there’s never a good time to leave,” Cook said. “But with the success on the field and in the front office last year, there really couldn’t have been a better time.

“She did a lot of great things for the Silver Knights and the Futures League. You could tell she was getting sad her last week but (he told her) ‘Don’t worry, you’re making the right decision. Obviously, you’re going to miss it.'”

BACK TO THREE UMPS

Cook said the league, as expected, will go back to three umpires per game. Last year it scaled back to two, feeling that the umpire pool was too thin to get three quality umps per game, but it created problems with the field ump having to make correct calls at every base and sometimes being out of position.

“The problem wasn’t the umpires, it was not having that third one,” Cook said, adding that calls were often “a tossup because neither of them were in position to get a good look (at the play). …I do like the umpires we had last year.”

Will the FCBL be able to get quality third umps? Yes, Cook said, because a lot of those quality umps did not want to work FCBL games because they didn’t want to be part of a two-man crew.

OTHER NOTES

Cook says the response for Education Day, which drew over 3,000 last year, is good and that at least 500 are already signed up. The game that day vs. Brockton, unlike last year, won’t be an exhibition game, and they won’t have the rules kids came up with. They’ll have other things for the students to take part in, Cook said….

Cook says the team has one more Fireworks Night than last year…

He added in end-of-season meetings with the city, both parties were happy with the July 4 morning game and will have it again…

No official word, but right now sources say Vermont is the leader in the clubhouse to host the FCBL All-Star Game in late July.

LEGION TOURNEY CONFLICT?

There is one conflict the team will have to work out with the city and New Hampshire American Legion officials. The state tournament is slated for Holman but there is one day when the Silver Knights are slated to be home during the tourney, Saturday night July 22, the second day. Cook said the Knights could change the time from 6 p.m. to 7, and forego batting practice to help accommodate the Legion…

COACHES FOR 2023

Cook says assistant coach Brendan Martin will return, but he’s not sure about pitching coach Spencer Bergeron. If Bergeron decides not to, the team will definitley try to fill the position to give manager Kyle Jackson a second coach.

NESN RETURNS

NESN will televise a handful of games for the fourth straight year, Cook said, but this time he said it’s possible a couple might be on tape delay. He said he’d rather have them do a Friday night Silver Knights home game and air it on tape delay early Saturday afternoon (as most NESN games were to avoid conflict with Red Sox broadcasts), rather than have the team have to schedule a day game for a Saturday. “You still get the exposure on NESN but you don’t lose the money by having the game at noon on a Satuday as opposed to 6 p.m. on Saturday.”

The noon games were either not well attended or fans sat in the upper part of the bowl to avoid the sun, and the camera didn’t pick up much of a crowd. A Friday night atmosphere, he said, would be “a more accurate representation of Holman Stadium.”