North Shore Navigators owner Rosenfield has high hopes for upcoming season

Somehow, it was entirely appropriate that Phil Rosenfield picked the Porthole Restaurant to unveil the new name – and logo – for his North Shore Navigators baseball team.Not only are their logos somewhat similar, but Rosenfield thought long and hard about a name for his new venture, and tapped into the area’s rich sailing history for the name.”I know the history and the background of this area has a lot to do with mercantilism and the science of navigation,” he said. “The seafaring industries had a lot to do with the nation’s growth.”The Navigators, who will play at Fraser Field beginning in June, are part of the eight-team New England Collegiate Baseball League, described by Rosenfield as an “elite premiere wood bat summer league.”The league will consist entirely of college players, most of whom use aluminum bats during their regular seasons.There are a few differences between this league and the one in which the North Shore Spirit – tenants at Fraser Field for the previous five years – played. For one thing, it’s not a professional league and the players won’t be paid. For another, all the players are culled from the nation’s colleges, and, as manager Jason Falcon says, they’re all Grade A players.”They come here,” said Rosenfield, “to get experience and to make the contacts they need to further their careers.”They play hard,” Rosenfield said. “They know their future depends on it.”There will be similarities between this team and the Spirit, too, however. Rosenfield hopes to run several big promotional events, and hopes to have the US Olympic baseball team in here this summer. Also, he said, the Navigators plan fireworks displays.Mostly, however, Rosenfield wants to make the Navigators a sort of community property.”We want to make sure everyone has a part,” he said. “We want this to be community baseball.”Like the Cape Cod League, players in the NECBL are housed within communities, which, says Rosenfield, gives people in the area a stake in what happens at Fraser Field.”In Holyoke (where the team was located before Rosenfield moved it to Lynn), you’d have people in the stands who knew all the players, and knew what they’d done the night before,” Rosenfield said.Rosenfield also said he has already spoken with Lynn School Superintendent Nick Kostan about continuing the school reading program started by the Spirit.”We’ll be in the schools in March and April to get that going,” he said.Also, Rosenfield said, the team will ask various community groups to man the concession stands during games.”We want them to come in, and have a good time,” he said. “And at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to give something back.”Rosenfield’s Holyoke team, which Falcon says will comprise about 85 percent of this year’s Navigators, finished with the best record in the NECBL last year, losing the title on a walk-off homer in the playoffs.”We’re expecting to win a championship this year,” he said. “We promise to bring exciting and winning baseball to this area.”