An hour and a half before a home game in late July, infielder Kaeden Kent finished his batting practice and entered the Brewster Whitecaps dugout with a declaration: “It’s Ferretti’s time!”

Before long, most of the Whitecaps headed toward the parking lot and piled into their cars. Their destination: Ferretti’s Market, the convenience store and deli that has earned a cult following from the team for its sandwiches and snacks.

“We have quite the routine,” said outfielder J.D. Rogers. “It’s early work, then BP and then it’s Ferretti’s.”

The same routine plays out before every home game, and for Ferretti’s diehards like Rogers, even some road games. His go-to order is “The Breakwater,” a sandwich with turkey, bacon, lettuce and honey mustard. Sometimes he’ll switch it up with “The Sidewinder,” similar but topped with barbecue sauce.

Rogers has made the trip enough times that the store’s co-owner, Raj Patel, knows him by name. The same goes for several other Whitecaps, and Patel said he tries to learn more names with each team visit.

At 11 a.m. on a Monday, for instance, the store buzzes with a mix of locals and visitors, a long line snaking to the butcher’s counter. But by 3:30 p.m. on a game day, the shop transforms into the Whitecaps’ makeshift clubhouse, as pitching coach Brian Del Rosso put it.

“They all put the order in and they've just gotta wait,” Del Rosso said. “So they’re all just hanging out there, walking around, probably with no service either. So I think that’s pretty cool, too.”

In size, Ferretti’s is more like a 7/11 than a grocery store. But the shop offers a variety of products — ranging from maraschino cherries to house-made hot sauce, from Bud Light to fresh avocados. But the main attraction is the deli counter, which offers cold cuts and specialty sandwiches, including the “Breakwater” and “Sidewinder” and other favorites, like the “Ferretti Extreme” and “Mama Ferretti’s Meatball Sub.”

The shop has drawn players since 2006, when the team moved to Stony Brook Field from Cape Cod Regional Technical High, but few teams have embraced the Ferretti’s experience like this group. And the store’s ownership has embraced them back.

The evidence is on the shop’s Google Maps page. Scroll past a few photos of the store’s front awning, house-made soda and deli meats, and you’ll see it — a group of Whitecaps posing in the middle of the store, with Raj smiling wide near the back of the store, holding a peace sign high up in the air.

Assistant coach Rocco DePietro burst out laughing when he saw that photo, which is as ridiculous as it is endearing.

“That’s just kind of how our team is,” DePietro said. “They’re just super easy to get along with. I mean, if you ask anyone in this community, from Ferretti’s to our kids camps to any of that stuff, they’re very approachable.”

They’ve all gotten along well with Raj, his brother, Mike, and uncle, Niven, who have co-owned the store since they bought the business in February 2023. The Patels even catered a recent postgame team meal, serving Butter Chicken, a traditional Indian dish.

The previous owners, Paul Ferretti and his daughter, Gina Sylvia, opened the store in 2000 after purchasing the property, which had been a candy shop. Before long, the owners learned to prepare for the surge of Whitecaps players once the Cape Cod Baseball League season would begin in mid June.

“They would come through the doors all at once,” remembered Paul’s daughter, Gina Sylvia, who ran the store from 2009-23. “Everybody who was shopping in the store was so happy to see them, everybody greeted them with open arms.”

Paul would make sure the store was stocked up on sunflower seeds and chewing tobacco when summer rolled around, because the sudden influx of baseball players made those items in high demand.

Ferretti’s, marked by a blue awning on the corner of Underpass Road and Route 137, has long been a sponsor of the Whitecaps, and a poster in right field at Stony Brook proudly proclaims the market as “Best Bullpen on The Cape!” and “Just a line drive from the ballpark!”

“We’re baseball fans to begin with, but we were hoping something like this would percolate,” Sylvia said. “We are huge fans, we always went to all the games to support them. But they also, in turn, supported us. We felt like part of a family.”

After the Whitecaps won the CCBL in 2021, the team brought the championship trophy to Ferretti’s, sharing the glory with the people who fed the team throughout the season.

Del Rosso, who joined the team in 2022, and DePietro, who arrived in Brewster in 2023, told the players about Ferretti’s at the beginning of this season, recommending the shop as the best spot for a pregame meal. The rest was history.

“In a weird way, it’s like our cafeteria,” Del Rosso said. “They go out to Ferretti’s, rejuvenate and get out here and play.”