This summer, Alameda will have two collegiate baseball clubs competing on the island. The Alameda Anchors, our 2023 Bay Area Collegiate League (BACL) champions, and the historic Alameda Merchants are back after an eight-year hiatus.
After winning last year’s championship in the Bay Area’s collegiate summer baseball league with an emphatic 14-0 “mercy rule” victory over the Napa Deep Roots, the Anchors are back for the 2024 season.

“The Anchors are excited to be back in the community and to defend our 2023 Championship,” said Anchors and Merchants owner/general manager Tony Cecaci. “We feel great about the team we’ve assembled.”
This season the Anchors will have a new coaching staff at the helm and a lot of new talent on the field. Josh Pasenelli, an assistant coach at De Anza College, is taking over the head coaching role. Gunnar David, who pitched for Holy Names University and Ohlone College, will accompany Pasenelli as the assistant coach for the Anchors.
“I think we have some exciting young talent with bright futures in the game,” said Cecaci.
Those talented Anchor athletes include second baseman EJ Cord from Jessup University and outfielder Caven Croom from Sonoma State University, two players with promising backgrounds for fans to keep an eye on. Fans should also look for the resurgence of one of Alameda’s most historic baseball teams.
In 1977, the Alameda Merchants started as a 16-to-18-year-old senior Babe Ruth league team. In 1988, the Merchants 16-to-18-year-old squad was the runner-up in the Babe Ruth World Series, before ultimately becoming a collegiate summer ball club almost 40 years later, in 2012. Then, in 2013 and 2014 the Merchants won back-to-back Golden State Collegiate Baseball League (GSCBL) championships.
Needless to say, the Merchants have a rich history. However, it has been eight years since they hung up the cleats in 2016. Now, thanks to the success of the Alameda Anchors and efforts from Tony Cecaci, they’re back. For the 2024 season, the Merchants will be competing as affiliate members in the California Collegiate League (CCL), a premier collegiate summer ball program.
Leading the Merchants in their comeback season is Dustin Cheyne, who led the Anchors to the 2023 BACL Championship as the head coach and is an associate coach at Oakland’s Laney College. Joining Cheyne from the Anchors to the Merchants is assistant coach Marciano Reichel, who coaches at Hayward’s Moreau Catholic High School. And last but most certainly not least, Alameda Merchant veteran Dan Mills is back on the coaching staff. Mills helped lead the Merchants to its previous back-to-back championships in 2013 and 2014.
The Merchants coaching staff is full of championship experience, but the goal for this season is different.
“Since we’re starting up as a new team, we call this Merchants 2.0,” said assistant coach Dan Mills. “One of my goals is trying to get these kids as many reps as they can. We’re going to focus on getting them prepared to go back to their schools.”
In addition to developing these young players, Mills wants to “establish the team’s footprint after being gone for eight years.”

With an experienced coaching staff focused on development and establishing a mark, the Merchants players will surely be ready to further their baseball careers. A couple of promising Merchants include catcher Atticus Gonzalez from California State University Los Angeles and pitcher Qorey Houston from Simpson University. Both of them previously attended high school at Saint Joseph’s Notre Dame here in Alameda.
Owner/general manager Cecaci is known for “making the ballpark a great place to be,” and hopes to up the ante this year. Focusing on a family environment and engagement, Cecaci looked at how other teams create that kind of ambiance.
“They get kids to race mascots, do potato sack races,” Cecai said. “We will be trying to find ways to bring whole families out to enjoy a local night out.”
Cecaci is in the process of working out the details of those promotional days for the teams’ home crowds, with additional hopes to serve beer and wine for adults. Both the Anchors and Merchants will be playing home games at College of Alameda’s Pat Bail field. However, on various Sundays throughout the season, home games for both teams will be played at Laney College in Oakland.
The Anchors take the field to start their 2024 campaign and title defense on Tuesday, May 28, on the road for the first of a back-to-back series against the West Coast Kings Gold in Fairfield. The Anchors return to Pat Bail Field on Wednesday, May 29, for their 2024 home opener and second game against the Kings.
On Thursday, June 6, the Merchants start the season on the road against the Menlo Park Legends at the College of San Mateo at 5 p.m. Then the Merchants return to Alameda for their 2024 home opener in what has been dubbed “The Island City Showdown” against the Anchors. The battle between Alameda’s two baseball clubs will take place at Pat Bail Field on Friday, June 7, at 6 p.m.
See the Anchors 2024 schedule and purchase game tickets online. The Merchants 2024 schedule also is available online; game tickets will be available online soon.
One last note: Some of the Anchors and Merchants players and coaches are in need of host families here in Alameda. For more information or to host a player or coach, please email [email protected].
Contributing writer Gabriel Caraballo covers local sports for the Alameda Post. Contact him via [email protected]. His writing is collected https://alamedapost.com/Gabriel-Caraballo.