Full List of 2021 Appalachian League Accepted Players
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – On Friday afternoon, the Appalachian League announced 40 more players accepted to participate in their 2021 summer season, and Northwest Nazarene's Shawn Grandmont and Grant Kerry have been added to the list.
The Appalachian League is made up of 10 teams, located in Bluefield, Va., Bristol, Va., Burlington, N.C., Danville, Va., Elizabethton, Tenn., Greenville, Tenn., Johnson City, Tenn., Kingsport, Tenn., Princeton, W.Va., and Pulaski, Va.
To date, there are 159 accepted players from all levels of collegiate baseball set to participate in the league. Players will be assigned to each of the teams later in the spring.
Grandmont, an infielder from Lethbridge, Alberta, was second on the team with a .339 average through 16 games for the Nighthawks in 2020 before the season was cut short. He also led NNU in nearly every other offensive category, finishing with 17 runs scored, 21 hits, six home runs, 15 RBI, 43 total bases, eight steals, and a .694 slugging percentage.
Kerry, an outfielder from Perth, Australia, is in his first season with the Nighthawks after transferring from Boise State. While with the Broncos, Kerry used a redshirt season in 2019 before starting in eight games of the shortened 2020 campaign. During those eight contests, he recorded a double and four RBI. In the summer after his redshirt season, he hit .297 and was 15-15 in stolen bases for the Lethbridge Bulls of the Western Canadian Baseball League.
Opening Day is set for Thursday, June 3, for all 10 clubs, featuring home series in Danville, Elizabethton, Johnson City, Kingsport and Princeton. The 54-game season will feature three two-game series per week through Saturday, Aug. 7, culminating in a one-game Appalachian League Championship on Monday, Aug. 9. There will be a single off-day per week for the league throughout the inaugural season and a league-wide shutdown will take place from Monday, July 5-Wednesday, July 7, allowing teams to reset their rosters following the conclusion of the college baseball postseason.
The Appalachian League is one of the longest-running baseball leagues in the history of professional baseball, beginning in 1911 before transitioning into a short-season league for Minor League Baseball in 1957. The league has undergone another new transformation in 2021 as it becomes a summer collegiate baseball league in partnership with MLB and USA Baseball and its Prospect Development Pipeline ("PDP").
The PDP is the collaborative effort between MLB and USA Baseball that establishes a player development pathway for amateur baseball players in the United States, and will be an integral part of the identification and development process for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team and other future national teams.
