Harvard's Max Perlman is healthy and dominating in the Cape League. (John Vu/WEEI.com)

Playing baseball for the Harvard Crimson has allowed Max Perlman to understand and appreciate the rich complexities of Boston and its sports-crazed inhabitants.

Representing the Western Division for the second time in the Cape Cod League All-Star Game, the Longwood, Fla., product also understands what playing baseball in this area really means.

“This is awesome,” Perlman explained prior to the game Wednesday night. “This is my first time ever playing a game [at Fenway Park]. I’m real excited to throw off the mound.”

The 6-foot-7 righty suffered through an elbow injury that kept him out of the majority of his sophomore and junior campaigns at Harvard. Although he did make five appearances for the Crimson in 2010, posting a 1-2 record, he had a not-so-pretty 9.60 ERA that had him searching to regain his form.

“I mean, it was just a long rehab process,” he explained. “A lot of work in the gym, it was a long throwing program. Once your arm gets back and healthy, you really just have to get the feel of all your pitches, get the feel of the game back. Being out of it for close to a year, you lose a lot of the feel. So it really helps to just get out there and play.”

He has since made the injury a thing of the past, and is currently dominating some of the best young hitters from across the country. As he certainly knows from experience, the CCBL is a great stage to compete with the best of the best.

“One through nine, everyone [in the Cape Cod league] is such a good player,” he explained. “You have to get up and ready for every game, there’s no weak spots in any lineups. It’s just fun to play with good competition both against you and on the same team.”

So far this season he has made six starts for the Gatemen, going 3-1 with a dominating 1.65 ERA, which is good for sixth in the league. In addition, he is in the top five in strikeouts and innings pitched.

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In Wednesday’s Cape Cod Baseball League All-Star Game, the East Division All-Stars certainly could have used the pitching prowess of Anthony Ranaudo in some capacity as they fell to the West 5-0 at Fenway Park.

Alas, Ranaudo, the Red Sox draftee who decided to leave the Brewster Whitecaps of the East Division on July 19 after pitching 29 2/3 innings over five starts without allowing an earned run, was nowhere to be found on the mound, field or dugout, leaving just his absence to be the two-ton elephant in the stadium of the team that had drafted him 39th overall in June’s MLB Draft.

Ranaudo’s absence in any manner from the Cape League came as a slight surprise given his comments earlier in the season concerning his stay with Brewster.

“I’m here to play for the rest of the summer,” Ranaudo said on July 2. “I’m here to develop. I’m here to get better and move on from there.”

Ranaudo’s manager in Brewster, Tom Myers, however said that he and the rest of his team knew they would eventually lose their ace, especially after his hot start.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before he would go. He’s at a crossroads between going back to LSU or signing a professional contract. It’s something he wanted to spend some time at home with his family to discuss and really think it through,” said Myers, who added that Ranaudo told him he was “disappointed” to be leaving the Cape so early. Read the rest of this entry »