Baseball's back, but with some bugs

The Independent Collegiate Baseball League kicked off with doubleheaders on Monday, but there are some kinks still to be worked out.

For example, the Amsterdam Mohawks' live stream for each game was late in starting, and the video feed cut out periodically. The Glens Falls Independents, who use a website created by Wix, had some video issues as well, and were late in starting their feed. Not every team's roster is readily available online for media use, which isn't going to help.

The rosters have a decided Section II flavor by design, as there are very few players outside of the 518 in the league.

At East Field, which is home to the Dragons of the Perfect Game Collegiate League, the home-standing Independents dropped a doubleheader to the Albany Athletics, one of the traditional powers of the Albany Twilight League, 8-5 & 3-1.

Over in Amsterdam, the Mohawks, playing without regular manager Keith Griffin (COVID-19), swept a double-dip from the Albany Dutch, who are using the Dutchmen logo from the PGCBL. Acting manager Greg Christodulu has a roster that includes a few familiar faces from Shenendehowa, including Wake Forest-bound Jake Reinisch. A gentlemen's agreement allowed the bottom of the 7th to be played, even though Amsterdam won the opener, 7-4, just to give the players some extra work on defense.

In the second game, Albany wasted a solid start by Ben Seiler (Albany Academy/Siena) and an early homer by Luke Gold (Ballston Spa/Boston College), as the Mohawks came back from a 3-0 deficit to complete the sweep. Down 3-1 in the 6th, Nick Kondo (Saratoga/UAlbany) belted a 3 run homer to put the Mohawks up for good, as Amsterdam came away with a 7-3 win. Brooks Knapek (Albany Academy/Virginia Commonwealth) started for Amsterdam in game 2 opposite former teammate Seiler, but lasted just 1 inning, giving up all three Dutch runs.

The teams are off today, and the home teams will swap opponents on Wednesday, with the Athletics at Amsterdam, and the Dutch at Glens Falls in another set of doubleheaders.