John Wylde is going to die soon. The cancer says it’s a certainty. He might make it through this summer and has an outside chance to get through the next one. He cares about autumn, winter and spring, but for the last quarter-century, John Wylde has measured his life in summers. He’s hoping he has two left.

The Cape Cod Baseball League, founded in 1885, has been the nation’s premier amateur league since Grover Cleveland was president – the first time. Each summer, about 300 elite college baseball players are invited to spend seven weeks playing for one of 10 teams on the Cape, an opportunity that has few equals in the world of amateur athletics.

Nearly 30,000 baseball student-athletes compete in the NCAA, so the chance to spend a summer or two playing America’s pastime on the Cape isn’t lost on the tiny percentage who head to easternmost Massachusetts. While baseball student-athletes spend most of their year receiving an education in the classroom and on the field, their summers on Cape Cod provide a cultural and athletics experience only the most fortunate of college ballplayers receive.

While Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are wildly popular during the summer months for vacationers looking for a slice of beach, wicked sunsets and fresh lobster, it’s on the Cape where future big-league stars hone their skills in front of scouts night in and night out. In Major League Baseball’s 2008 first-year player draft, 217 former CCBL players were selected, including 14 in the first round.

All-stars Lance Berkman, Nomar Garciaparra, Brian Roberts and Mark Teixeira played on the Cape during their summer breaks from college. Jacoby Ellsbury spent the 2004 summer months with the Falmouth Commodores before heading 80 miles north to help the Boston Red Sox win the 2007 World Series. Future hall-of-famer Craig Biggio played for Yarmouth-Dennis in 1986 before collecting the first of his 3,060 career hits for the Houston Astros just two summers later.

All of the players on the Cape come from college institutions. Most are from high-profile Division I programs, but Division II, Division III and junior college players also find their way onto rosters. On most nights, five games are played on fields that house high school contests during the spring. Families fill the stands, kids shake the hands of their future heroes, and admission is free. Cape Cod may be best known for its beaches and seafood, but for two months each summer, the action is on the ballfield, where teenagers from across the country are establishing memories of a lifetime.

John Wylde was an athlete, spending his college days at Harvard on the tennis court. He inherited his father’s steamship agency, Patterson, Wylde and Co., before developing Howe Statistics and eventually selling the business to Peter Shipman, who was a part-owner of the San Diego Padres. Without any financial worries, Wylde turned his attention to the Wareham Gatemen, a Cape League club that needed his passion for statistics, student-athletes and the game of baseball. Over the years, his gifts of time and money have become legendary.

“It’s a little boy’s thrill having the opportunity to be around players who will eventually achieve great success in the game,” Wylde said. “What does it mean to the kid today who has the opportunity to rub elbows with boys who will be future Major League players and stars?”

But the Cape League is about more than playing baseball. It’s about the dreams of youth, it’s about community and it’s about how deeply people feel about the game. It’s baseball heaven.

The young men who spend their summers in the Cape will make an impact at the next level. In 2007, 212 former CCBL players were on Major League rosters.

While Dan Kantrovitz didn’t go on to become a Major League star, the former Brown student-athlete was still able to use Cape Cod to jump start his professional life. After a successful junior season in 2000, Kantrovitz was preparing to spend the summer working as an intern at Goldman Sachs. Instead, he elected to sign a 10-day agreement with the Hyannis Mets and went to the Cape for a prolonged tryout against some highly touted colleagues from other college programs.

“Most of the players sign on long before the regular season,” Kantrovitz said. “I called all the teams and asked if I could try out. If there was a spot, I had to market myself. Hyannis said they had some guys trying out for Team USA and needed some temporary players. It was a really tough decision because of the opportunity at Goldman Sachs.”

Ultimately, Kantrovitz elected to head to Hyannis, where he played well during his 10-day stint. He was the only player on the temporary roster to end up with the team for the entire season. After returning to Brown to finish his degree and play his senior season, Kantrovitz was picked in the 25th round of the 2001 amateur draft by his hometown St. Louis Cardinals. He is confident he wouldn’t have had that opportunity without being seen that summer in Hyannis.

“Even though I was playing for a Division I team at Brown, we didn’t have quite the exposure some of the teams in the Pac-10, SEC or ACC had. The only way I could play in front of scouts every day was when I was on the Cape,” Kantrovitz said.

Kantrovitz is not the only player from a small-school background to receive an invitation to the Cape. Divisions II and III players also show they belong.

University of Tampa first baseman Jose Jimenez spent last summer playing for the Orleans Cardinals, batting .197 with two home runs and 18 RBIs. Jimenez returned to Tampa for his junior season and led the team with 10 homers en route to an appearance in the Division II championship finals. After the season, Jimenez was drafted in the 33rd round by the Los Angeles Angels.

“The guys (on the Cape) throw a little harder,” Jimenez said. “There’s a little difference in the talent than in Division II. I think some guys would find it hard to believe that a Division II guy can succeed down here because they don’t think we can handle this competition.”

Whether you come from a major Division I program or not, once the summer season starts, all players are created equal. There are no hotels, fast cars or extra cash flying around. Because the Cape League is for amateurs, players aren’t paid and many have to pick up day jobs to support themselves through the summer.

The league does everything it can to ease financial worries for players, which is why most are set up with host families for the summer, paying minimal rent to live on the Cape for the summer.

Cape League Commissioner Paul Galop opened his home to players for many years and said the experience was unparalled.

“We probably housed kids for about 14 years. My kids grew up with them,” Galop said. “The little guys want to be bat boys and bat girls. They really look up to these guys.”

The relationship is just as important to the players, who often make lifelong friends after spending a summer with a host family.

“I think it makes or breaks the summer,” said Louisville third baseman Chris Dominguez. “The host families are the people you spend most of your time with besides your teammates. I got hooked up with some great people, and I’m definitely going to stay in touch.”

In 1997, when their son was 11 and daughter was 13, Tom and Sheri Gay decided to open their home to Cape League players.

“Our son wanted to play baseball when he grew up and we thought it would be great for him to see what it was like to play college ball and how much work it takes to play on the Cape,” said Sheri Gay, the Wareham Gatemen’s vice president for housing, jobs and outings. “I think we all benefited from having the young men in the house.”

Of course, the first experience for the Gay family was crucial in determining whether housing players each summer was a worthwhile experience. When Texas Tech catcher Brandon Buckley came to live with Sheri, Tom and their kids in 1997, he immediately became part of the family.

“When Brandon was drafted, his home base was in New York, and my daughter and I went to see him a few times,” Gay recalled. “When he was in Florida for spring training, he called my son, who was down there playing baseball. We hadn’t heard from him for two or three years, but one day he called and it was such a nice surprise. He’s married, has two kids and it’s been fun to see him grow up.”

Things have come full circle for Buckley, who returned to the Wareham dugout this season as an assistant coach. One of his first stops back on Cape Cod was at Sheri and Tom Gay’s home.

During their 11 years as a host family, the Gays have housed nearly 20 players, including many who have gone on to play professional baseball. But hooking up with a young man who might make it to the Major Leagues was never the goal for Sheri and Tom.

“We’ve been to college games, Major League games and weddings of our players. They become part of our family,” Gay said. “I remember when Brandon left, my son cried. We all fell in love with him and it hurt our hearts to see him go.”

For some families on Cape Cod, hosting players spans more than one generation. Julie Santoni grew up with three sisters and a whole lot of baseball players as her parents began welcoming young men from across the country into their home.

“We developed really close relationships with them,” Santoni said. “It was just like having older brothers.”

Now married and a mother of two, Santoni has opened her own home to the Cape Leaguers, just as her parents did years ago. The impact has been significant for her son Connor, 8, and daughter Emma, 5.

“They offer clinics every summer, and Connor has been doing them since we started housing,” Santoni said. “He just thinks the players are gods.”

With kids like Conner anointing such status, the players have a serious responsibility to become role models, despite their relatively young ages. And for the most part, the players hold up their ends of the bargain. When Santoni’s father died in the early 1990s, Pepperdine standout Adam Housley was a source of comfort for the family matriarch.

“My mother housed Adam right after my father passed away and they became very close,” Santoni said. “I wasn’t sure if we should do it that summer, but he was such a good support system for her and proved that life went on.”

While Wylde doesn’t house players, he opens his heart to 25 young men each summer. Wylde and his wife Patty never had children, but hundreds of former Wareham players have received love and care from the CCBL’s first family.

“People ask if I have children,” he said. “I say no, but then I pause for a second and tell them I have 25 for the summer.”

Families that provide a roof and meals for college athletes receive $56 per week, equivalent to a couple of sacks of groceries. Yet families on Cape Cod do open their homes each summer, welcoming players, coaches, broadcasters and others into their lives – not for a few months, but quite often forever. The Cape League may be known for the elite players who fill the rosters, but it couldn’t happen without the support from the entire community.

The coaching staffs for the 10 Cape League teams generally serve as coaches at colleges and universities and are paid for their services during the summer, although the salaries are not going to make any of them rich. Most of the coaches spend their time on the Cape because they love the game and the purity represented by the oldest summer league in the nation.

“I think it’s the best amateur coaching and playing situation in the world,” said Cotuit manager Mike Roberts, father or current Baltimore Orioles all-star second baseman Brian. “Cape Cod is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and the fans have embraced the league and players down to the last detail, just like they embrace the Red Sox. You get pure baseball on Cape Cod.”

And with pure baseball comes free admission. None of the teams on Cape Cod charges fans for admission, and sodas, hot dogs and hamburgers served on donuts at the Yarmouth-Dennis field are reasonably priced. While fans would surely pay a couple of dollars to see baseball that rivals minor-league quality, the league chooses not to raise its money by charging admission.

“The Cape is old-time baseball and we try to have a pass-the-hat philosophy,” Wylde said. “We don’t go into the stands to bug the fans.”

Each game night, pitchers from home teams will head into the stands armed with raffle tickets for that day’s 50-50 drawing. After the tickets have been sold, one lucky fan wins half the take, while the organization keeps the other half as a fund-raiser. While many fans do make donations at the gate or participate in the 50-50 raffles, none are required or pressured to do so.

The laid-back philosophy is one that Roberts, who served as head coach at North Carolina from 1976-98 and later as director of athletics at Florida Southern, still treasures in his third managerial stint on the Cape.

“My goal every summer is to help these young men grow up as people first,” Roberts said. “I couldn’t be any happier if I was coaching the Red Sox. I hope I’m here until I take my last breath.”

There are some who argue that the Cape League serves as an open market to recruit players from one school to the next during the summer. The theory says that coaches see players who can help their teams and offer them more scholarship money than they currently receive to switch programs. While legislative changes made as a result of recommendations from the Division I Baseball Academic Enhancement Group have changed the landscape at the college level, Roberts dismisses the notion that summer recruiting exists.

“The coaches do not recruit in the Cape League and to me, the coach never recruited. What does happen, and this has gone on for 30 or 40 years, is that the players recruit,” Roberts said. “It’s usually just the student-athletes talking and conversing. I think transferring is incredibly hard. My belief has always been that you need to look at what is the right program for you academically and then the baseball is just gravy.”

One of the reasons the CCBL has been able to survive financially is because of the generosity of individuals like Wylde. While few people are able to establish endowments for league franchises, it is the cumulative impact of the contributions that ensures student-athletes will have a top-notch experience each summer.

However, Wylde’s devotion to the Wareham franchise stands apart from the cumulative effect.

“I believe fervently that we need to make things in Wareham just as attractive as we can for our players,” he said. “For Wareham not to have the financial resources makes it exceedingly difficult to compete. Wareham isn’t an Orleans, Chatham or a Cotuit.

“I’m terribly fortunate that I’ve been able to create a trust fund for the Gatemen, and I’m hoping that will produce enough revenue for them so they don’t have to spend their whole winters out attempting to fund-raise.”

Wylde asked that the amount not be revealed, but the bequest is extremely generous and should fulfill his dreams.

On June 13, thousands of fans piled into the stands at Spillane Field as the Cape League transgressed from tradition and opened the 2008 season with just one game, hosted by the Wareham Gatemen.

Before the first pitch, John Wylde was honored in a pregame ceremony. Wareham staffers wore shirts with “Wylde” on the back; men and women let tears flow from their eyes. Everyone said thank you to a man who has dedicated his life to making the Cape League what it is.

The eight idle teams came to watch the opener, certainly unaware of the contributions the man in the press box has made to the league during the past 25 years. Never one for the limelight, Wylde simply enjoyed his normal summer routine – introducing players over the PA system and making sure he scored every play.

Wylde doesn’t know if he’ll make it through this season or get all the way to next summer, but one thing is for sure: He’s going to continue to live and die with Cape Cod League Baseball, watching student-athletes in their prime having the best summer of their lives.

“I’ll probably be thinking about scoring some odd play as the lights go out,” Wylde said. “God has been extraordinarily kind to me. What a wonderful life.”