This is Part 1 of a two-part series highlighting Chatham’s two 2026 CCBL Hall of Fame inductees: Grant Green and Seth Etherton. You can read Part 2 on chathamanglers.com.

CHATHAM, Mass. — A few seconds before one of the biggest swings of Grant Green’s Cape Cod Baseball League career, three overzealous fans tried to steal his thunder.

Green — a Southern California product and Chatham shortstop — stood in the righty batter’s box at Veterans Field, consumed by the pressure of his at bat. It was the eighth inning of the 2008 Cape League All-Star Game, and the East Division trailed 6-4 with a runner on. Green, at the plate, represented the tying run.

In an instant, though, the pressure was punctured by the sight of three streakers down the right field line. They jogged across the outfield grass, leapt over the center field wall and scurried toward the trees lining the left field fence.

All Green could do was smile. He took a moment, settled down, and focused on just putting the barrel on the ball. Because that’s what Grant Green always did.

“I had to step out, laugh a little bit, and it kind of just relaxed everything,” Green said. “And the rest is history.”

History, in this case, was a two-run moonshot to center field on the very next pitch, which paved the way for the East All-Stars’ 8-6 win. With that swing, Green earned himself East All-Star Game MVP honors, one of the crowning accolades of his stellar two-year Cape career. And with that swing, Green also displayed two of his greatest qualities — of course, the elite bat, but also his lighthearted nature and passion for the game.

The 6-foot-3 infielder played for Yarmouth-Dennis in 2007, and won a championship with the Red Sox before heading to Chatham in 2008. In his lone season with the A’s, he hit .348 with 12 doubles, six home runs and 21 RBIs. Green was named an All-League shortstop and took home the Robert A. McNeece Award as the CCBL’s Outstanding Pro Prospect.

Now, his two-year stint will be immortalized. On June 11, the league announced Green as one of five inductees to the 2026 CCBL Hall of Fame Class. For an entire summer, Green’s excellence at the plate earned him admiration from his A’s teammates and coaches. Over a decade later, that excellence is being recognized by the CCBL Hall of Fame.

“He played the game with such enjoyment and fun and passion,” former A’s hitting coach Pat McGee said. “He made it look easy.”


Long before Green was a Cape League All-Star and first-round MLB Draft pick, though, he was a little leaguer in Southern California, regularly going to Los Angeles Angels games with his family. He eventually evolved into a standout shortstop at Canyon High School, and after becoming a sought-after recruit, elected to stay close to home and play college ball at USC.

Like most standout freshmen, Green jumped at the opportunity to play on the Cape after his first year with the Trojans. Yarmouth-Dennis manager Scott Pickler coached Green’s older brother, Garett, at Cypress Community College in California, and that connection led Green to the Red Sox in the summer of 2007.

Green was primarily a utility player for a Y-D squad where getting on the field was an accomplishment itself. That year, the Red Sox roster featured three future top-10 MLB Draft picks: Buster Posey, Gordon Beckham and Jason Castro. With Beckham manning Green’s traditional spot at shortstop, the younger Green had to move all over the infield.

That was no problem for him. As long as he was getting at bats, Green never really cared where he was in the field. And he made the most of those at bats when he got them, hitting .291, the team’s third-best batting average.

The flashes of greater potential were always there, though. Then-Chatham manager John Schiffner remembers watching Green warm up before a contest against the A’s that summer. He was impressed by Green's powerful bat and strong arm, noting that his throws to first base were “still climbing” when they popped into the glove. Green’s tools made Schiffner think, “That guy’s got a chance.”

“He knew he was pretty good,” Schiffner said. “He had the swagger.”

Green remained a key piece on a Y-D squad that put together one of the best seasons in CCBL history. The Red Sox beat Chatham — and Green’s USC teammate Kevin Couture, a Chatham reliever — in the semifinals before sweeping Falmouth in the championship series. Although Green rarely stole the spotlight, he knocked two home runs in Game 1 against the Commodores to lift the Red Sox to a crucial series lead.

It was during that semifinal series, though, that Green got a taste of what it’d be like to play in Chatham. Couture estimated the A’s had close to 10,000 fans packed into Veterans Field for the matchup against Y-D. When Green elected to come back to the Cape the following summer, that was part of Couture’s recruiting pitch.


Green, Couture and another USC teammate, Brad Boxberger — who played for Orleans during the 2007 season — wanted to join forces on the Cape. Couture sold them on the community and culture in Chatham, and soon enough, all three were suiting up for the A’s in the summer of 2008.

“Chatham's next level, as far as cities and fans and environment to play summer ball,” Boxberger said. “We all wanted to keep playing together in the summer, and Chatham was definitely the place to be.”

The USC teammates, along with Kyle Seager (North Carolina), Charles Brewer (UCLA) and Victor Sanchez (San Diego), moved in with their host family — Chatham team doctor Mary Ann Harwood — in a house down the road from Lighthouse Beach.

As Green recalls, there were hardly any “serious moments” in the house. Banter was constant. Trips to the beach — although much different than the ones Green was used to on the West Coast — and backyard wiffle ball games occupied most off days.

Nothing was unserious about the average game day, though. Most would start an hour or two after the sun rose.

Green and a few teammates — typically his roommates — hit the gym in the early hours, then manned Chatham’s annual baseball camps for children later in the morning. Occasionally, there’d be a stop for breakfast at the Old Harbor Cafe between sessions. Then, when all the campers had left, they’d grab lunch before heading back to the field for early work ahead of the evening’s game. Like most things Green did, it was rooted in consistency.


Eventually, that consistency became contagious to those around him. Sanchez, an infielder who was a year younger than his roommates, adopted the schedule and the work ethic. He lifted heavy because his older peers pushed him. By the time he returned for his sophomore campaign at USD, teammates remarked about how much he’d grown in the weight room.

“I felt, because of Grant and how well he was doing, I felt like, ‘If these guys are doing it, I should be doing it too,’” Sanchez said. “It wasn’t just going through the motions, it was our time to get our work in, and the coaching staff in Chatham stressed that.”

For how tirelessly Green worked, there wasn’t all that much for him to brush up on. McGee, Chatham’s hitting coach at the time, said Green was already such a pure hitter that the only thing they worked on was being selective in the box. Since he was so aggressive, McGee said, Green was sometimes tempted to chase pitches outside of the zone. He could hit just about anything, but if he only swung at pitches he could square up, McGee thought, Green would be an even harder out.

“Mechanically, he was so sound. He was so fundamental,” McGee said. “I think the best thing I ever did for him was just keep throwing him pitches in batting practice.”

The additional reps helped Green become one of the league’s most feared hitters. By the All-Star break, he was hitting around .400 and was a frontrunner for league MVP.

So, it came as no surprise when Green was named the starting shortstop for the East Division in the All-Star game in July. His late home run — and the interruption that preceded it — were instantly etched into Cape League history. He finished the campaign hitting a whisker below .350 with the power and glove to match, cementing his selection as the league’s best pro prospect.

That was no surprise either. Just about everybody in Chatham’s dugout knew Green would be a big leaguer from the moment they watched him play. And MLB clubs thought the same.

When Green went back to USC for his junior campaign, Couture remembers scouts drooling over Green almost every game. Couture said he saw the leadership qualities and confidence that Green honed in Chatham mold him into one of the best players in the country. Green said Chatham helped him develop the “pro mindset” of staying level and learning to deal with the ebbs and flows of baseball. That’s why he was selected No. 13 overall by the Oakland Athletics in the first round of the 2009 MLB Draft, and eventually spent parts of five seasons in the majors.


In fact, success came so naturally to Green that summer that his teammates hardly noticed it until the end. Sure, it was hard to ignore how well he was hitting on a night-to-night basis. But that was just what Grant Green did. And in his humble nature, it never felt like he took center stage.

“It was like you expected Grant Green to just go out there, get three hits and field every ball that went to him,” former Chatham catcher Gregg Glime said.

“He was just so good from start to end,” Glime added. “From my standpoint, what set Grant apart from everyone was that he knew he was going to be a big leaguer, but he was humble, and he was just there to play baseball and have fun with his teammates.”

That passion for baseball never wavered. Even when his coaches might’ve wanted it to.

As McGee remembers it, some cancellations throughout the 2008 season forced the A’s to play a doubleheader on the final day of the season, featuring a game at Wareham and another in Orleans. With a grueling travel day on deck and the A’s already eliminated from playoff contention, a few players and coaches wanted to test who could see the least pitches throughout the day, with the goal of making at-bats go a bit quicker.

Green, whose aggressive approach often prompted him to swing at the first pitch in most of his at-bats, was an early favorite. Instead, he took the first pitch he saw. He was being selective, just like he’d worked on.

McGee couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it. But Green was nothing if not consistent in how he approached the game. So, Green smiled, took a moment, settled down, and focused on just putting the barrel on the ball.

Because that’s what Grant Green always did.