By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI
MELROSE — Last summer, the Melrose Americans lost in the semi-final round of the Intercity Baseball League (18-years and over) playoffs to the Middlesex Expos 2-0.
The Americans, who play their home games at Morelli Field, went 10-14 in the regular season to place fourth in the league.
Manager Kevin Burgoyne lost eight players from that team as this year’s roster has 27 members with 19 returners. Three of them are from Melrose: Ian Libby, a first baseman and outfielder, will make his season debut on July 14. Ryan Dolan and Mike Peters are both pitchers.
Melrose’s Barry Bell will return for his 12th year as assistant coach. He started with the team when they moved from Medford back in 2013.
The Americans, who will play a 25-game schedule this season, opened the year back on June 2 and will end the regular season in early August.
During the off-season, the Intercity League, Yawkey League and Park League all decided to play against each other during the regular season. However, once the playoffs begin, the three leagues will play only their league teams as each league will have their own champions.
“They decided to try this system for this year and see how it works out,” said Burgoyne, who is in his 31st-year at the helm. “So far, I think it has worked out pretty well. There is a lot of parody in all three leagues.”
Melrose will play 13 games against Park and Yawkey League opponents as they will face each squad once. They will play 12 Intercity League games playing each team twice.
Heading into this week, the Americans record was 5-3 as they are tied for third place.
“We have been pretty solid all-around hitting and pitching,” said Burgoyne, about the team’s first eight games.
The next game for the Americans will be on July 7 as they visit the Lexington Bulldogs at Lexington High School. That game will start at 5 p.m.
Melrose will then play the next three nights as well. On July 8, they take on the Andre Chiefs at 8 p.m. at Maplewood Park in Malden.
The Americans then face the Brighton Black Sox at Brandeis University in Waltham on July 9 at 8 p.m.
Melrose will host TJO Sports at Morelli on July 19 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free as Burgoyne would love to see as many fans come out as possible to support the team.
“This is high quality baseball,” he pointed out. “Just about all of the players in the league have played in college. We have players who played in Division 1, 2 and 3.”
The league website is: intercityleaguebaseball.com and the team’s schedule is listed there.
