Brooklyn Cyclones: Ten Days and Counting

From the desk of:  THE SURF AVENUE SLUGGERS

The ring's the thing...!

BROOKLYN CYCLONES BASEBALL

YEAR SIXTEEN

Baby Bums Baseball Returns to the Beach.

Finally, Opening Day is ten days away ... appropriately kicking things off with an old rivalry on Friday, June 17th at Coney Island against the Staten Island Yankees.

Let the countdown begin!

The Cyclones will then invade Richmond County on Saturday to complete an opening home and home series against their outer borough rival.  After which, Brooklyn will bus back across the Verrazano Bridge to host the Tri-City Valley Cats before hitting the road to Connecticut.


For the last few seasons, once spoiled Cyclones fans have been singing the boardwalk blues.

Beginning with their inaugural year of 2001 through 2012, the Cyclones topped 50 wins twice in a season, and failed to win at least 40 games just once when in 2002 they posted a par 38-38 record.   They owned an overall 541-359 mark over those first 12 seasons, giving them a 45-29 average yearly record.  Brooklyn failed to make the playoffs just three times over that span, once because a 45-30 record in 2008 somehow fell just short of the post-season.

More recently, however, the Cyclones have failed to win at least 40 games in 2 of the last 3 seasons, interrupted only by their 42-34 record in 2014.  In 2013, they barely finished above .500 with a 38-37 record.  Although they rebounded with a 42-34 record in 2014, they followed up with the club's worst season to date with a distressing 33-43 record.

Worse, the Cyclones have failed to qualify for the playoffs in each of the last 3 seasons, after qualifying for 9 of the previous 12 post-seasons.

The World Comes to Coney Island

In September, MCU Park will host the final qualifier round to decide the 16th and final participant of the upcoming 2017 World Baseball Classic.  The national teams of Israel, Great Britain, Pakistan, and Brazil will play a round robin September 22-25, with the pool winner advancing into the WBC tournament.

Columbia, Australia, and Mexico each won their respective qualifying pools earlier this year.

Automatic Bids (12): 

Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kingdom of Netherlands, Puerto Rico, USA, Venezuela