The boys of summer will officially hit Spillane Field on Saturday, May 30, for Cape Cod Baseball League tryouts. From 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., about 80 college baseball players from around the country will vie for an open slot on one of the 10 league teams.

And, after hosting the league-wide tryouts, the Wareham Gatemen will proceed with a full week of tryouts on their own.

The Gatemen have 27 permanent players already drafted onto the roster, but need to fill at least two permanent player spots, and sign 15 temporary players, explained Gatemen President Thomas Gay. The team needs temporary players in case others are injured or are drafted for other major baseball events.

“If they move onto the super-regionals, we wouldn’t see them until late June, at least,” Gay said. “If they move onto the [College] World Series, we wouldn’t see them at all.”

In explaining Wareham's decision to extend its tryouts, Gay said the league "has tightened up on the number of players you can have on a team. Now, it’s limited to 15 temp players for the whole season. We want to be sure we have enough of the best players.”

Gay said the league created the new rules to make the playing field a bit more even, from a financial standpoint. He said that some teams with more money were signing as many as 75 players.

“It costs $1,000 to bring a player in for a day,” Gay said. “Not a lot of teams can spend that kind of money, and it was being abused.”

The Gatemen belong to the West Division of the Cape Cod League and are the only non-Cape Cod team in the league. Because of the attention the Cape Cod League has been getting over the past several years, Gay said, it has been harder and harder to hold onto players. Of the seven players who are returning from last year’s roster, two have been signed to play with Team USA, and a third might follow suit.

“Sometimes, when you select kids too well, it can come back to burn you,” Gay said.

Thomas Worthen, who sits on the Gatemen board of directors, said all players for the Gatemen are in college, and are primarily looking for exposure to big-name baseball scouts.

Participating in the extended week-long Gatemen tryout will be 11 or 12 players who have been specifically invited by the team.

Most who are chosen, Worthen said, do not stay for the summer, even if they are signed as temporary players, because they must wait to be called to fill in for another player.

“Many of them go home, but some of them join another league,” Worthen said. “They have to do what’s best for them individually.”

Gatemen board member Warren Randolph said players from all corners of the earth are welcome, though the past few years have only seen players from the United States. He hopes that this particular tryout method will yield better team results, because the scouts can gather the prospective players in one place, and see how they work together on the field.

“The past couple years, we’ve struggled getting a team that gels together and progresses along to the playoffs,” Randolph said. “No one person can go out and scout all these kids, unless that’s all they do. We’re all volunteers.”

Randolph said this is especially important for the Gatemen’s short, 10-week season. If the team falls behind, that’s it.

“It’s literally impossible to catch up,” Randolph said. “It’s not like college, where the same players come back every year. We have a revolving group of kids.”

Tryouts will be held at Spillane Field, and are open to the public. Randolph cautioned that they will be slower than a normal baseball game, but that there will be Gatemen and Cape Cod League merchandise to purchase.