Harwich field manager Steve Englert knows how much the Cape League means to the Massachusetts community. Stories of future stars gathering to a tiny peninsula to play baseball get passed down from generation-to-generation. Knowing legends are passing through their backyards, young baseball players dream of playing in front of their hometown friends and family.

Whether as temporary or full-time players, the Harwich Mariners roster is typically sprinkled with local baseball players. That is no accident on Englert’s part.

“ There's something special to me, because they grew up in the area,” Englert said. “And they know what this league's all about. More so than just everybody wants to play in the Cape, but it means a little bit more because they're from the area.”

Part of the experience includes the Cape Cod Baseball League’s annual trip to Fenway Park in Boston. This past Wednesday, Harwich position players had the opportunity to showcase their hitting and fielding skills at the home of the Boston Red Sox. While scouts watched, players got to view Fenway from the other side of the net.

For the New England natives, it was a dream come true.

Outfielder Niko Brini attended high school less than five miles across the city from Fenway.

While he attended many Red Sox games as a kid, the Boston College High School graduate could not hold in his excitement ahead of the Mariners trip up to Beantown.

“It’s going to be really cool stepping in the box there,” said the rising Wofford senior. “Taking a swing on the field, it’s a childhood dream.”

Brini spent the past two summers playing for the Newport Gulls in the NECBL. After a fantastic season at Wofford where he hit over .300 and stole 26 bases, he was ready to make the jump to his favorite Cape League team.

“The Cape games I would visit as a kid would be at Harwich,” he said. “To be on the team now on the other side of the fence, my 11-year-old self is smiling ear-to-ear every day.”

When the day finally arrived, the Plymouth-native was in disbelief where he was standing.

“ It's probably one of the cooler experiences I've ever had,” Brini said. “Just to be on the, (the same field as) the team you root for growing up.”

As Brini stepped into the left-handed batter’s box for batting practice, he looked past the 302 feet to the Pesky Pole in right field, seeing the seats where his younger-self would cheer on his heroes.

While it was Brini’s first time on the field, catcher Matt Conte played his first game at Fenway before his senior year of high school.

As the Cape League entered its 100th season in 2023, Fenway hosted the league before the season started.

As one of the best high school prospects in New England, Conte was selected to the New England Scout team that would scrimmage against the Orleans Firebirds, for whom his brother Sam was playing with that summer.

A rising senior at Dexter Southfield School in Brookline at the time, Conte got the chance to play against collegiate players for the first time.

“I got  a couple sacrifice flies, but it was pretty cool just playing here, taking it all in,” he said.

Back on the same field, walking the grounds where he watched Red Sox Hall of Famer David Ortiz isn’t lost on the rising Wake Forest sophomore.

“Coming here watching Big Poppy swing was definitely really cool,” the 2023-24 Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year said. “Because he's one of the greatest Red Sox players in history and it means a lot to share the field with him.”

While Conte hopes he will return to Fenway in a major league uniform someday, Wednesday’s experience is not something he takes for granted.

“ Because you never know when the last time stepping on the field is,” Conte said. “So I'm super grateful to be here. Super grateful God blessed me with this opportunity.”

Boston College’s Kyle Wolff is no stranger to taking the field of America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. Each year, the Eagles play multiple games at Fenway, typically against other Massachusetts schools.

But one game stands above the rest.

 ”We play the Pete Frates ALS Game and that's so special,” Wolff said.

Played annually since 2012, the game honors former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, who died of ALS in 2019. All proceeds from the game go to the Pete Frates Foundation, the non-profit organization Frates started to assist ALS patients and their families.

Playing the game for the fourth time this past season in front of a crowd over 1,500, the Andover, MA native takes pride in playing for those in need.

 ”There's so many donors here for ALS and to raise ALS awareness,” Wolff said. “It's the coolest night of the year. Not only because you're playing at Fenway. But it's for such a special cause and it's a cause that's greater than you and bigger than yourself.”

As a kid, Wolff remembers almost getting kicked out of a game due to a case of mistaken identity. Sitting on the third base line, the young Red Sox fan almost grabbed a fair ball, thinking it was a foul.

“ The day before, a kid had reached over and grabbed a a fair ball, but he thought it was foul,” Wolff recalled. “And then the next day, I come to the game and I'm sitting in the same seats and I look like this kid and I reach over and my dad pulls me back in the last moment.”

While security threatened to kick Wolff and his dad from the game, they explained they were not repeat offenders.

“I then got interviewed by ESPN,” he said. “They were like, ‘It's the same kid that did it two days in a row. Like, how can he learn? Why didn't he learn from his experience yesterday?’”

Regardless if it's a player’s first, second, or fifth time walking onto a Major League Baseball field, the experience never gets old, knowing they are living out their childhood dreams.