2025 FUTURES LEAGUE HOT STOVE: REGISTER HERE!
ROCKLAND, Mass. (October 1, 2025) 一 Five distinguished player alumni and one legendary coach will be enshrined into the Futures Collegiate Baseball League’s Hall of Fame as the Class of 2025, it was announced today by Commissioner Joe Paolucci.
The third-ever class will be celebrated as part of the first league-wide Futures League Hot Stove, which is set for Saturday, November 8 at Rivier University in Nashua, N.H. More details on the event and links to register to attend can be found by clicking here.
Headlining the class is current New York Yankees catcher/first baseman Ben Rice, who capped off a two-year career with the Worcester Bravehearts as the 2020 Futures League Most Valuable Player. Rice hit .369 with 16 home runs – which are tied for the fifth-most in league history – and 51 RBI across 73 career games en route to consecutive first-team All-Futures League nods in 2019 and 2020. His 13 RBI in postseason contests rank second all-time. Rice initially joined Worcester amid a 2019 championship run the summer after his freshman year at Dartmouth, posting a team-best .392 average in 27 games before hitting a clutch three-run homer in the deciding title game against the Bristol Blues. The Cohasset, Mass., native was the standout among standouts during the league’s talent-rich COVID summer of 2020, hitting .398 with a league-leading 11 homers, 84 total bases and .683 slugging percentage. He led the regular-season champion Bravehearts with 27 RBI and 43 total hits. With his career at Dartmouth College cut to only 30 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rice’s performance in the Futures League proved to be a launching pad in his career and led to the Yankees drafting him in the 12th round in 2021.
Following two decades as a Division 1 head coach at Georgetown University, the late Pete Wilk joined the Vermont Lake Monsters as their inaugural Futures League field manager in 2021 and made a lasting impact on both the Burlington community and the league as a whole. On the field, Wilk led Vermont to single-season league record win totals in the first two of his three seasons at the helm, winning 42 games in 2021 and 44 in 2022. The team’s 2021 league debut culminated in a postseason championship, as Wilk went on to become the first two-time Manager of the Year in league history the following year. Wilk was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, in February of 2023 and inspired the baseball world by returning to Burlington for the final few weeks of that summer season, alongside his wife (Erin) and daughters (Reese and Casey). He lost his 15-month battle in April of 2024. In his memory, the Futures League now gives out the Pete Wilk Award annually to a persevering individual who has overcome injury, illness or personal tragedy to make an impact for their team on or off the field, as that is exactly what Wilk did throughout his life.
Few names appear in the Futures League record books as many times as Ryan Sullivan, who played in a league-record 185 regular-season and 17 postseason games over five seasons (2013-17) as a Nashua Silver Knight. The Southern New Hampshire University product is also the league’s all-time leader in regular-season career at-bats (682), RBI (145), hits (199), total bases (351) and doubles (41). He ranks second in home runs (37) and extra-base hits (78) and third in runs scored (109), all helping him slug at an incredible .515 clip and post an .874 OPS. A four-time Futures League All-Star, Sullivan was an offensive backbone on consecutive championship teams in 2016 and 2017, capping the first of those title runs with Postseason Most Valuable Player honors after hitting .444 with two homers, eight RBI and five runs scored in six games. His 12 playoff hits in 2016 are the most in Futures League history and included a game-tying homer to force extra innings in the first championship game against Worcester. In his postseason career, he was a .342 hitter and still holds record totals with his 20 RBI, 25 total hits and 42 total bases.
Mariano Ricciardi is Worcester through and through, having attended Worcester Academy before spending parts of four summers (2017-20) with the Futures League’s Bravehearts during his career at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Dayton. The infielder contributed to two of Worcester’s four all-time championships and helped the Bravehearts advance to the title series in all four of his seasons with the team. Between the regular season and playoffs, he is the franchise’s leader in career games played (133), runs scored (97) and hits (136). Fifteen of those hits came in postseason play, which ranks as the second-most in Futures League history. Ricciardi’s best season in a Braveheart uniform was 2019, as he hit .311 with a franchise-record 17 doubles, 26 RBI and 34 runs scored. He then helped the Bravehearts win it all as the Postseason Most Valauble Player honoree, hitting .364 with four RBI and seven runs scored. He carried an on-base percentage above .400 in both the 2018 and 2019 regular seasons, led by a career-best .448 in the former summer. After graduation from Dayton, Ricciardi was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in 2021 and spent three seasons in their minor league system.
Another local product hailing from North Attleboro, Mass., Nick Sinacola enjoyed a dominant two-year run pitching for the Brockton Rox on his way to an ongoing professional career in the San Francisco Giants organization. Sinacola went 5-1 with a 2.17 ERA and 126 strikeouts in 83 innings across the two summers, earning Top Pro Prospect among league pitchers in 2019 and Pitcher of the Year in 2020. He is the only pitcher in league history to pick up those honors in multiple seasons and the first from the Rox in five years to claim either. Sinacola piled up 71 strikeouts in 44 innings in 2019, ranking second in the league that summer and tied for fourth all-time in single-season history. The righty continued his dominance in 2020, going 3-1 with a 1.62 ERA – good for second-best among qualifiers – and a league-high 55 strikeouts against just 13 walks in 39 innings. An incredible five of his 16 career starts with the Rox featured double-digit strikeout performances. Following his second Futures League season, in 2021, Sinacola became just the fourth first-team All-American in University of Maine baseball history and became the Giants’ seventh-round pick. He spent the 2025 season with the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels.
Cam Cook is known today for his work leading the Nashua Silver Knights as their general manager, but his ties to the Futures League date back to his days as a standout player during the final two summers of his career at Nichols College. The infielder contributed to the Silver Knights winning their second pair of back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017, hitting .378 with 107 hits in 75 career regular-season games. Cook put together one of the most incredible single seasons in league history with 81 hits over 50 games in 2017, setting a record that still stands today despite the closest player appearing in eight more contests. Until 2023, only one player had come within 10 hits of Cook’s record total. The first-team All-Futures League selection at third base, Cook also led the league with a .397 average, had a .442 on-base percentage and trailed only Hall of Fame classmate Sullivan among Nashua’s leading run producers with 30 RBI that summer. He also posted 12 hits in 11 career postseason games, including two-hit showings in both title round games in 2016. Having completed his sixth year leading the Nashua front office in 2025, Cook has built two more title-winning teams and was named the 2020 William J. Terlecky Executive of the Year.
EVENT DETAILS
The Futures League Hot Stove will run from 5-9 p.m. on November 8.
Prior to the Hall of Fame portion of the program, there will be a moderated panel discussion on college recruiting featuring top New England baseball and softball coaches beginning at 5 p.m. in Sylvia Trottier Hall.
The Hall of Fame induction and panel is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Dion Center, where a cocktail reception will be held from 5-8 p.m.
Registration for both events is now available by clicking here. The cost is $45 for the recruiting panel, $105 for the Hall of Fame induction, and $125 for both events. The price of the Hall of Fame event includes a buffet menu.
For the latest Futures League news and information throughout the year, visit thefuturesleague.com and follow the league’s Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram pages.