Norwich — The Futures League All-Star game talent was on display on Tuesday night.

So was the Norwich Sea Unicorns organization.

Norwich was well-represented with eight players and manager Kevin Murphy competing on Team Rose City against Team Three Rivers.

General manager Lee Walter Jr. and his staff planned and helped pull off hosting an all-star game at Dodd Stadium for the fourth time in its history. Walter has loved every hard-working minute of it.

““We spent about eight months as a staff putting this thing together and trying to put on as good a show as we could,” Walter said. “It’s a blast. It is certainly very tiring. I’ve probably gotten about six hours of sleep in the last couple of days just worrying about the weather and everything else and hoping everything would go well.

“But at the end of the day, it is so much fun to be able to do this and have this talent on this field and just build on what this league is building for itself.”

All-Star festivities started on Monday with a home run derby and concert and continued Tuesday with autograph signing sessions, game action and postgame fireworks. Two-time World Series champion Jim Leyritz also made an appearance.

“It’s great having everyone around here and other teams showing support for us,” Murphy said. “It’s really cool for us and Norwich.”

In its fourth season in the Futures League, Norwich is thriving.

The Sea Unicorns are the defending Futures League champions. They’ve carried the momentum into this summer collegiate baseball season, owning the best record in the league (29-16) at the All-Star break.

They have a young, bright manager in Murphy, 25, who’s already built an impressive summer league resume in just two seasons in Norwich. He was named the league’s manager of the year last year.

“Kevin is amazing,” Walter said. “It’s funny because a lot of people certainly wouldn’t have taken a chance on a young coach like Kevin. But I’ve known Kevin going back to when he was a player at Eastern (Connecticut State University) and I was working there before coming here. He’s always impressed me with his baseball acumen. I think the sky's the limit for him as far as he wants to go with this coaching gig.”

Murphy deflected any credit for the team’s success.

“It’s baseball,” Murphy said. “Players play, I just coach. I’m just here trying to give a good experience for all the guys that come through.”

On Tuesday, Murphy had the difficult task of juggling the lineup and squeezing in all of the All-Stars, including Norwich’s AJ Soldra (Seton Hall), Gavin Hawkes (Rider), Nick Tomasetto (Rutgers), Jimmy Mulvaney (Fairfield), Gio Conte (UConn), Liam Carroll (New Haven), Christian Stratis (Northern Oklahoma College) and Nick Sturino (Fairfield).

This is Sturino’s second season with the Sea Unicorns and first playing with Murphy as the manager. He’s from New Milford.

“He’s a great clubhouse guy,” said Sturino, who’ll be a senior at Fairfield this fall. “He knows his stuff. He does a great job bringing the guys together. He recruited a great group of guys. There’s nobody that I’d really rather play for, especially for summer ball.”

The Futures League season resumes on Wednesday.

Norwich will travel to Burlington, Vermont, to start a series with the Vermont Lake Monsters.

Walter will give his staff a day off to recover from hosting the All-Star Game.

He received some good news before the All-Star Game when Norwich Mayor Peter Nystrom announced a one-year extension, meaning summer baseball will return to Dodd Stadium next summer.

There’s still some work to be done, but there’s an agreement in principle, according to Walter.

“They are going to continue to negotiate out all the final details,” Walter said. “Obviously, we’ll try to look for something a little longer as well. But at least we know we’re here next year in 2025. This is our fourth year in the Futures League, so next year will be our fifth anniversary, which is awesome. I’m happy that we get that extra year at least so we can celebrate five years in the Futures League next year. This year has been great with the 30th year of the stadium.

“A bright future ahead, hopefully.”

g.keefe@theday.com