For the Love of the Game

On a hot July evening, Mike Murray, BS '24, sneaks a quick look at his Apple watch. In just 30 minutes, the Falmouth Commodores—one of ten teams that make up the fabled Cape Cod Baseball League, perhaps the nation’s top collegiate summer baseball league—will take the field against the Orleans Firebirds. Murray is the Commodore’s assistant general manager—and at just 22, one of the youngest officials in Cape League history. It’s his job to make sure every little detail is covered before the umpire cries, “Play ball!”

“There’s so much to get done before, during, and after every game,” says Murray, as he jogs back and forth around Guv Fuller Field, checking to make certain all the key rituals—infield and batting practice, the national anthem, and first pitch—are on track and that each member of the baseball operations staff is in place and ready to go.

“I’m always taking care of one thing or another,” he says. “But I’d rather have it that way, because I like being busy.”

If Murray knows the Commodores as well as the back of his baseball mitt, it’s no wonder. He first joined the team as a bat boy at age 11, and has spent every summer since then with the Falmouth squad, working his way up the summer league ladder rung by rung, learning what it takes to run a ball club.

“I love being part of the Commodores and the Cape League because it’s all about playing for the purity of the game,” he says. “Here in Falmouth, it’s the people who make the work so enjoyable. Everyone gets along and it’s really been like a family to me.”

A true team player

Murray was appointed the Commodores’ assistant general manager last fall by the unanimous vote of the team’s board of directors—a full seven months before he graduated from Suffolk with a degree in criminal justice and sports management. (His father, Michael Murray, Sr., BA ’93, is also a Suffolk alumnus.) While Murray grew up in West Roxbury, he spent his summers at his family’s home in Falmouth and began attending the Commodores’ baseball clinics as a youngster. He was a team batboy from 11 to 14 years old, an experience that left a big impression.

“I remember how cool it was to be in the dugout with the players and ride with them on the team bus,” he recalled. “It just felt so good to be part of the team.”

Over the next five summers he advanced from bat boy to intern, charged first with clubhouse and field maintenance, followed by an apprenticeship with the general manager. There his responsibilities grew to include not only generating stats and helping players settle in with their host families, but also interacting with Major League Baseball scouts and serving as a liaison with the umpiring crew at home games—experiences, he says, that “really helped me to meet more people and grow my baseball network.”

Today, as assistant general manager, Murray hires interns, orders all team gear and apparel, analyzes the baseball operations side of the budget, communicates with the Housing Committee on players’ coming and going, and contacts the league commissioner on team roster transactions.

“This role has taught me a lot about how to properly communicate with professionals in the sports industry,” says Murray. “That’s so important because the way we create our rosters is mostly built on relationships with college coaches. They trust us with their players, and we trust that they will send us players who appreciate the opportunity to play in this coveted league.”

Another intern on the rise

Another Suffolk Ram joined the Commodores’ roster this summer. Katelynn Brunt, Class of 2025, serves as the game day operations intern, where she’s responsible for setting up merchandise in the team store, organizing events like fast pitch and cornhole for young fans, and selling 50-50 raffle tickets.

And like Murray, she’s having the time of her life.

“I love the whole baseball environment,” says Brunt, a sports management major and a member of Suffolk’s cross-country and indoor and outdoor track teams. She found her first-year position through Suffolk Handshake, a platform the Center for Career Equity, Development & Success uses to help students find internships and other jobs. “Spending my summer here was something I could only dream about.”

'Any team would be lucky to have him'

When Chuck Sturtevant, a longtime executive with the Commodores and part of the Cape League for nearly four decades, resumed his general manager’s position with the club last autumn, he did so on one condition.

“Mike was the first person I called and told him I won’t take the job if he wasn’t onboard,” says Sturtevant. “He is very mature for his age, detail-oriented in how he approaches every facet of the game, and a good communicator with everyone he meets. He is a big component of our team’s success.”

Looking back over his 12 seasons with the Commodores, Murray has a deep bench of great memories of the players, coaches, and other staffers he has worked alongside. In some ways, the time has flown by—a busy blur of more than 500 games played and countless lessons learned—but the bonds he’s forged are lasting ones.

“Our head coach, Jeff Trundy, has a great saying: ‘We’re so lucky to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard,’” says Murray.

Tonight’s memories will be especially sweet. In the bottom of seventh inning, the Commodores erupted for five runs to pull out a dramatic 11-10 win over Orleans, in a game called early because of fog.

What makes all of Murray’s work even more remarkable is that, like almost everyone associated with the Commodores, he is a volunteer, not a paid employee. He regards his 12 years with the team as the kind of unparalleled apprenticeship that has equipped him to move up to the majors—and perhaps one day work for the Boston Red Sox, his favorite team since he was old enough to swing a bat.

“There is no question that Mike could work at the Major League Baseball level,” says Sturtevant. “Any team would be very lucky to have him.”