Movies have been made about it, every baseball player dreams of it, but only a few are actually selected to play in the Cape Cod Baseball League. This year, two Wichita State baseball players will have the honor to compete in the esteemed league.

Pitcher Sam Tewes will be playing in Massachusetts this summer for the Cotuit Kettleers while teammate Daniel Kihle competes for the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. However, this is not average summer ball.

While almost every college player has a summer team of their choosing whether they’re D1, D2, or NAIA, playing for the Cape is a completely different animal.

“The competition is definitely second to none,” Tewes said. “It has a lot of the best players around the country that compete at an extremely high level.”

To put it in perspective of just how good the players are, according to the team’s website, the Kettleers had seven players in the MLB draft this year with one player going as high as 21st in the first round. Casey Gillaspie was 22nd. Furthermore, the Hawks had 22 players recently drafted, one of which was Evansville’s Kyle Freeland who was the eighth overall pick by the Colorado Rockies.

“I think 20 of last year’s players got drafted, so the team is all new,” Kihle said. “We only have two returners. Everyone up here seems to be ‘the guy’ off their team.

“Everyone hit over 300 this past spring. All the pitchers are 92 to 99mph. It is just a totally different ball game.”

Ten teams grace this Massachusetts league, and almost every team is successful as the next, contributing 200 plus players each year to the MLB draft since 2007 as told by capecodbaseball.org. However, with talent comes different coaches that each of the players has to get used to in order to be successful.

“It is something that I have never seen before, and I think most players here have never seen some of these things as well,” Kihle said of the transition to new coaching and new tactics.

Many Shocker players have been successful in the league and are now under professional organizations including the Indians, White Sox and Dodgers. Cape Cod’s influence is not exclusive to the players.

Scott Gurss, director of Baseball Operations at Wichita State, spent four summers as the head assistant and hitting coach to the Kettleers. During his time, the Kettleers went to the championship series each season and won the Cape Cod League championship in 2010. With his experience of holding many one on one sessions with the nation’s top collegiate players, having him as on campus recruiting official is an asset for Wichita State’s team.

Gurss is just one example of how far the Cape’s reach of influence extends. With many of the local families hosting the players for the summer, it seems the whole town becomes extremely invested in the success of their temporary surrogate son, attending many of the games and taking advantage of the free admission.

“It’s a big deal to the people around the cape,” Tewes said.

In the New England town, there are only 225,000 people. Wichita has almost 400,000 people.

Despite the population size, people from all over the world travel to Cape Cod as a summer destination seeking its famous seafood, beach location and temperate weather. Tourists often compliment the town’s beautiful backdrop, and the league leaves its own trademark on the area.

“Cape Cod is generally referred to as the best summer league there is in the country,” said Wichita State baseball manager Dylan Seybert. “It has really good competition, and it’s a really beautiful spot to play in the summer.”

In addition to playing with best, being located only 75 minutes away from Boston and having a whole town to support the players, they learn life lessons that do not always apply to baseball.

“You develop a lot both as a person and player,” Tewes said. “It’s a maturing experience, and it really is unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

“I feel extremely blessed to be a part of it.”

Baseball fans can watch all 220 games, plus the playoffs, on an Internet broadcasting network at www.capecodbaseball.org. The games will also be broadcasted on Fox College Sports TV.