Three new managers will bring more than 65 years of combined experience in college and Major League Baseball to the Cape Cod Baseball League in 2025. That experience includes over 1,500 collegiate games managed and two World Series championships.
Former big leaguer Dennis Cook returns to the Chatham Anglers as the manager this summer after a stint as the pitching coach.
A son of the Lone Star State, Cook was a two-way player at Texas and was twice named All-Conference. He was a left-handed pitcher in the Majors for 11 different clubs. In the 1997 World Series, Cook was the winning pitcher for the Florida Marlins in Game 3, and Miami went on to win the series.
Cook pitched in 665 games to a 64-46 record and a 3.91 ERA. His coaching experience after retirement includes time with the Swedish and Polish national teams. He was the pitching coach in Chatham for four seasons before leaving in 2022.
“Just good people,” Cook said about what attracted him to the Anglers in 2018 and now again in 2025. “There’s a lot of positives. It’s good baseball. What’s not to like about Chatham?”
Cook said he will try to teach his players how to be professional baseball players, starting with respecting the game and playing it the right way.
“As a player, I always felt I had to earn my keep every day,” he said. “I felt like I didn’t take anything for granted when I was playing. My expectations of the kids we brought in is that they’ll be the same. There’s not gonna be anybody taking anything for granted. They’re going to play like their job depends on it every day.”
Loren Hibbs is the new skipper in the dugout for the Cotuit Kettleers this summer. Hibbs attended and played college baseball at Wichita State in the early 1980s before beginning his coaching career. He spent eight years as an assistant at Wichita State and then got the head coaching job at UNC-Charlotte.
Hibbs was at Charlotte from 1993 until 2019. He won six regular-season conference titles and was named conference Coach of the Year twice. The 49ers appeared in five NCAA Tournaments with Hibbs at the helm.
After 27 seasons with the 49ers, Hibbs returned to his alma mater as the director of operations in 2020. He was the Shockers’ interim head coach in 2023 and won American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. Hibbs’ overall record as a coach in college is 805-706-4.
When the Cotuit manager situation presented itself, Hibbs reached out to his longtime mentor Ron Polk, who coached at Mississippi State for many years and on the Cape.
“I trust him,” Hibbs said. “He told me that Cotuit was a great place. The people try to do things the right way and felt like it would be a good thing for me to be up here. All those years coaching in college, I never got the chance to come up here and coach in the summer.”
Now, he’s excited to finally get that opportunity. Hibbs’ focus this summer in Cotuit will be doing everything he can for his players. That’s ingrained as his philosophy through all the years with the lineup card. His coaching style is based in relationships.
“Player development is still at the core of what I believe is right,” Hibbs said. “We’re going to try to win games, that’s important as well. But just trying to help these guys get better and help them bridge that gap from college to their professional careers.”
Another World Series champion, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, rounds out the trio of new managers with the Falmouth Commodores.
A native of West Palm Beach, Florida, Saltalamacchia was a first-round MLB Draft pick out of high school by the Atlanta Braves in 2003. Over 12 Major League seasons as a catcher, he batted .232 with 110 home runs and 381 RBIs. He won the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2013.
After retiring in 2019, he has amassed coaching experience at the high school level in West Palm Beach and in the Cape League previously with the Bourne Braves.
Cook, Hibbs and Saltalamacchia will make their managerial debuts in the Cape League on Opening Day this Saturday. Hibbs will lead the Kettleers to Orleans, while Cook’s Anglers take on Saltalamacchia’s Commodores in Chatham.
