Just a week ago people were out doing yard work, taking walks, probably firing up the grill.

Yes, a nice spring day in the low 60s.

In December.

The Nashua Silver Knights and the Futures Collegiate Baseball League couldn’t have picked a better day to release their 2025 schedule. Baseball and warmer weather go together.

Now we’re in the deep freeze, it’s Christmas Day, so let’s keep those warm thoughts. The thing is, usually, whenever the FCBL schedule comes out, there’s a story behind the story. The league has been pitched a few curves in the last couple of years, but this latest was the departure of the Brockton Rox. The owner of the Rox and also the New England Knockouts of the Frontier League, Brian Kahn, basically couldn’t afford to operate both because – while no one will admit it – he’s more than likely losing his shirt. The Rox drew over 1,000 fans but Kahn was finding out the independent professional baseball model simply doesn’t work in New England. That gives more credit to Chris English and then John Stabile for keeping the Nashua Pride going for as long as they did (a decade).

But Brockton had been becoming a baseball wasteland, even when it had just the Rox in the FCBL. And its sad that the Rox history with Nashua, not only as an FCBL team but also a Can-Am League team vs. the Pride,is now over.

The Rox had struggled. As one FCBL source said, “Addition by subtraction, right?”

“I remember playing in 2016-17 at Brockton, and they were like everyone else in the league at the time,” Silver Knights general manager Cam Cook said. “Their Education Days were sold out, Fridays were really well attended. This is a bummer to see a team that was a staple with the Futures League not be in the Futures League any more.”

The point here? The FCBL is down to six teams after operating with eight most of the time. This is Year 15, and just before Cook played in the league it had 10 teams and two divisions.

But, as Cook and FCBL Commissioner Joe Paolucci will tell you, there were three or four teams that weren’t cutting it. Old Orchard, Me.. Leominster, Mass. Torrington, Conn. All three have gone poof. The other problem is the Pittsfield Suns are in purgatory, as the city goes through the agonizingly slowwwww process of trying to either renovate or rebuild historic Wahconah Park. And you thought that replacing the turf at Stellos Stadium was a foolishly complicated process? Yikes.

So here we are. The optic says the Futures League, which has also lost North Shore, (Lynn, Mass.), Martha’s Vineyard and Bristol, Conn.to the NECBL, is slowly shrinking. And it’s an optic that has a small faction Silver Knight season ticket holders feeling like they’ve got lumps of coal in their stocking. We’ve learned that there’s a small group that aren’t happy with the FCBL’s losing teams while some of the prices are going up. So they may bail.

They don’t care that the FCBL hit a home run with New Britain, Vermont and Norwich. The addition of those franchises meant survival.

What’s next? Six teams is a small number because here we are 15 years later after the FCBL began with just four (Nashua being the only one left).

“I’m not worried about it,” Paolucci said. “I know that that’s (wrong direction) is what the perception is. I think this goes back to my experience in the Cranberry League. The league is strong as long as the organizations are strong. It doesn’t matter how many teams you have. If we had 10 teams, and three or four of them were weak, didn’t have a great front office or great owner, that would be worse.”

And that was the case a few years ago.

“I think the best way to say it,” Paolucci said, “is we’re taking a step back to take two steps forward.”

And what are those steps? The two places that could be added to make eight would be Rockland, Mass., as Paolucci has everything in place except the most important thing – an owner; and the second is right down the road, Lowell. The Futures League has been working for the last year-plus on being the winner of the Bring Baseball Back To Lelacheur Park Sweepstakes that has been ongoing since Major League Baseball flexed its muscles and contracted half of Minor League America, including Lowell. It’s how the FCBL got Vermont and Norwich. Now it’s time to add Lowell to the list, but according to Paolucci, it’s the same deal – get the operator. FCBL people will tell you a rush job would be less beneficial, and that the schedule really needed to go out now. It didn’t help any of the franchises that last year it took until March.

But Lowell would be a biggie. Think of it.

Cook has.

“Selfishly, if there’s anyone that’s playing Opening Day Friday at Lowell, for the first time, baseball back at Lelacheur, it better be us,” Cook said. “There’s already ties there between Drew Weber (first Silver Knights owner and former owner of the Lowell Spinners) running things, it’d be awesome.

“This is where the Futures League at times can be a cohesive unit. I would love a team in Lowell, because it’s more games our fans can attend. It takes time to find the right people, and you don’t what to haphazardly throw people out there.”

So the FCBL is a league that right now has placed quality over quantity. At some point, the two need to intersect.

“The Futures League has six really good teams that are run well with good ballparks and the play is going to be really good,” Cook said.

But do you think it can stay this way (just six teams) for long? Like a 60 degree day in December, probably not.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @Telegraph _TomK.