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Henry Bramwell is returning to the HBCL as its commissioner.
Henry Bramwell, right, with Jim Gilligan, when he was last with the league as president in 2018.
Henry Bramwell already had held a few posts in the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, and now he’s added another.
The league announced at the end of January that Bramwell is returning, this time to serve as its commissioner. After helping get the Westhampton Aviators off the ground in 2009, Bramwell took over as league president from Brett Mauser in 2015, a position he held before stepping down and current league president Sandi Kruel took over in 2018.
Throughout the Aviator’s first eight seasons under Bramwell, Westhampton won a Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League title in 2009, then won three HCBL championships. Twenty-one different Aviators from Bramwell’s time as GM went on to be selected in the MLB draft, six of which reached the Majors, including current San Francisco Giant Nick Ahmed and Boston Red Sox pitcher Greg Weissert.
In September 2018, it was reported that Bramwell stepped down to spend more time with his family, his wife Dana, and, at the time, his 21-year-old son Jake. He also wanted to focus more on his business, Visionary Marketing, based in Bohemia.
In the six years since, Bramwell said, things have changed. His son is now a police officer in East Hampton and starting to build his own life there, and his wife has started a new job. So he he’s got some time to fill.
“This will give me an opportunity to get back into the league,” he said. “I didn’t want to get too involved, like with a specific team or anything. I just wanted to help Sandi out in any way I could and being a commissioner helps fill a void for her. I had always loved the league and strongly believed in its mission of free, family entertainment and its connection to the local communities. So with this change in my schedule, now I have a little more time to devote to the league.”
The league operated without a commissioner last season after Jim Perreira stepped down after two seasons. Kruel operated as both league president and commissioner, which was extremely tough to do, she said. Bringing Bramwell back on board was a perfect fit.
“We’ve both been GMs, and you could say now we’ve both been commissioners, but we both present a different set of skills,” she said. “Henry gets to deal with a lot of the coaches and the players, while I concentrate on things like getting the best price for bats and balls. We’re a very good team together, and the fact that he lives a little farther up the island means he can go to games there and I can stay east.
“I love it and I’m so happy he’s back.”
Bramwell said he’s tasked himself with bringing back some of the grassroots ideas the league initially started with, that it’s free, family entertainment that is helped run through host families and by players who should immerse themselves in their host communities.
“My number one goal is to keep the players safe and for them to have a productive summer,” he said. “They should all learn something while they’re out here, and I have to instill in our coaches that this is a developmental league. We’re funded by Major League Baseball, we have players coming in who we’ve recruited and they expect to play and get some at bats and innings and really make sure that everyone gets an opportunity.
“Now, we have some really good coaches out here, and part of what makes them so good is their competitiveness, and I get that. They want to win. It’s in their blood,” Bramwell continued. “Putting out the same lineup every day kind of helps that, but in the beginning of the season, the first few weeks, they’ve got to give everyone a shot to play. Then, when we get toward the end of the season, the last two weeks say, and they want to go with the best kids they’ve got, fine. But we also have to stay true to our original mission here and understand the importance of giving back to the community and being a part of the community.”
Another role that Bramwell said he’s already enjoyed so far is the hiring of managers and coaches. He was very much involved in bringing in Nate Fish to manage the Sag Harbor Whalers and the new staff for the North Fork Ospreys, now managed by Vinnie Morelli.
“I remember in 2009 when Rusty Leaver was really trying to sell to everyone how much a league was needed out here and he’d do his road show at all the different town halls and he was selling the mission. I think we need to get back to that a little bit,” Bramwell said. “One of the things I’ve really enjoyed since I’ve come back is interviewing all of these great coaches and really sharing that same vision Rusty had.
“We’re very unique comparatively to many other summer leagues in which we own all of the teams and that gives us some flexibility,” he added. “If we want to have clinics for specific positions, such as catchers, we can put together a day, say Mondays, and have a catching clinic where we do individual instruction. I have to say, though, I really did enjoy filling in those two coaching vacancies. That’s been one of the best parts so far.”
