These future baseball stars are stealing a summer on the East End.
A-lister sightings, a pipeline to MLB, hanging with buds on boats are all guarantees in the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League on the forks of Long Island.
“My friends are playing in leagues in the middle of nowhere. They’re pretty miserable. But out here it’s awesome,” Seattle-born pitcher Lincoln Oelschlager of the Sag Harbor Whalers told The Post.
“It’s probably the best place you’d be for summer ball,” added the pitcher for Southern California’s Pomona College.
The Hamptons league is an MLB affiliate that’s a local alternative to Cape Cod’s iconic collegiate summer development league.
Like its New England counterpart, the Hamptons has produced a bevy of major leaguers, including Diamondbacks pitcher Corbin Burnes, in addition to 600 MLB-drafted players — 112 of whom stepped onto a diamond in the majors.
A real hit
The LI league is instrumental in identifying talent that may otherwise be overlooked, Riverhead Tomcats manager Kyle McLaughlin said.
“The Cape Cod League is the league where all of the high-end Division I players go, but here, you have more of a mix, you have anywhere from D-I to junior college guys,” he said.
“This allows the opportunity for a lot of local Long Island players to kind of get into that same realm as the players that are in the Cape.”
McLaughlin’s team, along with the Westhampton Aviators, is specifically designated for Long Island-based collegiate players from area schools such as Hofstra, Adelphi, LIU and Stony Brook.
“I know my coach checks up on the league and the games and everything,” said Richie Hieder, an outfielder who will play for the Seawolves next season.
“We have a couple of guys from the team here, so it’s definitely good that they always want you getting that next level, getting that work in, and just staying ready.”
The rest of the league — the Whalers, the Southampton Breakers, the North Fork Ospreys and the Shelter Island Bucks — are anything but commuter style, though.
They welcome players from across the globe for an unforgettable summer, including Luis Takeshi Salto Miyajima, a native of Madrid, Spain.
The outfielder made his first trip to America to play with the Whalers, hit the water, see his first Mets game … and try Raising Cane’s chicken fingers.
Like almost all the out-of-town players, he resides with a host family for the summer, which almost always includes its own perks.
Teammate Tommy Shaw, who plays collegiately for the Castleton Spartans in Vermont, gets to dorm with a pal in Montauk and “hit the beach with the boys” in between their six-game-a-week, 36-game regular season.
“They’ve got a pretty nice golf course out there with Montauk Downs,” Shaw said, adding he’s gotten into the local basketball scene as well.
“Coming to the field every day with the boys, kicking it, playing ball. Can’t complain,” he added.
Oelschlager is no stranger to The Point either, as a friend’s host dad also boats them out to Montauk for a luxurious day at sea.
Kruel summer
The dream teams are all thanks to league president Sandi Kruel, who finds players housing and jobs, such as giving lessons or landscaping in between games.
“It’s a lot of door-knocking,” said the Sag Harbor native, who’s been the backbone of East End baseball for years as a labor of love.
Kruel’s two sons were Whalers many moons ago, and her brother hand-built the charming wood-shingle dugouts at their home field in Mashashimuet Park, where Carl Yastrzemski played in front of a Cooperstown-looking, green classic wooden grandstand as a boy.
Her efforts with the league won over Sag Harbor’s extremely affluent locals — and plenty of A-listers with Long Island roots.
“Jerry Seinfeld used to come down all the time. He used to be a big donor for us,” Kruel said of the Massapequa Park native.
Hicksville’s Billy Joel is also known to chat it up with players at a local sushi joint, Sen, according to the president.
“He definitely talks to the kids on weekday afternoons having sushi … and he’ll have a great conversation with them.”
Dwyane Wade, who bought a home on the North Fork, has shown up at a game, and both LeBron James and Kevin Love were once seen shooting hoops on a nearby court, said McLaughlin.
Kruel added that two teams once flocked from their dugouts to see Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck play tennis on a court behind right field in Sag Harbor.
But it’s the local community that makes the players feel like the big shots in town.
“One of the best parts is the little kids,” said Oelschlager.
“They think we’re like big leaguers, which we’re really not, but it makes you feel like a celebrity.”
