One of the hardest things for the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League to do is ask local families to host college baseball players who are coming in from all corners of the country, and even sometimes the world. Limitations from the COVID-19 pandemic and the boom of local rentals in the past few years compounded the housing issue for the league that is built around a mission of free, family entertainment every summer.
This season, the league got a little bit of a shot in the arm when it came to an agreement with Stony Brook University to house some of its players at the Southampton campus, a move that was year or two in the making. HCBL President Sandi Kruel said that the college will work as “overflow” for the league, at least initially, with 25 or so of the league’s players being housed there this summer in fully renovated buildings that include a recreation room, a 75-inch TV, and two weight rooms, in addition to the essential amenities.
Kruel is hesitant, she said, to push the college for additional rooms for a number of reasons. First and foremost, being someone who has been at the forefront of the league since it started, as the original general manager of the Hampton Whalers in 2008, she truly believes the league should run through traditional host families. On top of that, Kruel said the league has to pay the college for every room, and while continued negotiations, sponsorships and the fact that the league is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit has helped pushed costs down, it’s still costly.
Kruel thanked New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. for helping the league in the process, whether it was to facilitate meetings with the university or apply for some financial forgiveness through the league’s nonprofit status.
“It definitely gives us a breather, and we can sleep at night knowing that the kids are going to a have a safe place to put their head down, which is important for me when we have kids coming from across the country to play,” she said. “The teams that don’t have kids assigned host families will go there. But I do want the kids to experience host family relationships, so, hopefully, we get to move them around. It’s an absolutely beautiful facility.
“It’s definitely my concept as the president of the league to have kids experience living with a host family,” Kruel added. “To be able to see what it’s like living in a 20,000-square-foot house and a 2,000-square-foot house, because we’ve got both in the Hamptons. But between the rental season and Airbnbs, it has gotten ridiculously harder and harder to house these players. If certain towns don’t come together soon, I don’t know how much we’ll be able to keep it afloat.
“The college came into our hands, and we’ll continue to build relationships with it and maybe it’ll even grow. But I know of leagues that have housing accommodations in the middle of an ice rink, where they’ve got a little kitchenette, a cot and a bathroom. That’s what’s happening around the world. We’re not there yet, and the college gives us some much needed breathing room in terms of housing. It’s a very nice place for these boys, and there should be no complaints.”
