State award goes to Milford man

Tom Burgess Sr. of Milford wasn’t out to win any awards or accolades when he helped found the first American Legion Baseball team in the Orono-Old Town area in 1974, but he has received a lot of both recently, after retiring from Legion ball.

Burgess recently received an award from the United States Baseball Federation for being named Maine’s Amateur Baseball Volunteer Coach of the Year for 1988, his last season as manager for the Orono-Old Town team.

The award is the product of the USBF’s Golden Diamond Award program, which began in 1987. Trophies are awarded annually in three categories – volunteer coach of the year, player of the year, and woman of the year.

According to Bob Bensch, communications director for the USBF, the lateness of the award’s delivery to Burgess is not uncommon due to the organization’s practice of sending out the awards individually, one at a time.

“It’s not unusual for someone to get their award this late,” said Bensch. “Besides, it’s not awarded on the basis of just what someone did that particular year. The award is based on contributions to organized baseball and longevity of service to the sport.”

The USBF presents 51 awards (for the 50 states and the District of Columbia) in each category annually.

Each award recipient must be nominated by someone from the area or state in which they live. From that point, a state chairman submits information gathered on the nominee to the awards committee and the committee chooses the best candidate.

Burgess also received an award from the USBF in 1987 as one of five state finalists for the award.

“Both of them (awards) came as a big surprise to me,” Burgess said. “I didn’t even know I was up for any of them.”

Although he gave up his volunteer work after the 1988 American Legion season due to an illness which affected his equilibrium, Burgess is still devoting much of his free time to baseball as a volunteer assistant for the Eastern Maine Amateur Baseball League, a twilight league for players of all ages in the Eastern Maine area.

“It wasn’t an easy decision for me to give up coaching, but “It wasn’t an easy decision for me to give up coaching, but my illness made it difficult for me just to walk or run,” Burgess explained.

During his years working with the Old Town-Orono American Legion team, Burgess worked with many local coaching “greats” such as Jack Butterfield, Carl “Stump” Merrill, Gabby Price and Joe Ferris. Merrill is presently the manager of the New York Yankees.

The biggest reason, Burgess said, for helping to start up a Legion team was what he perceived as a real need for a league for older players. He wanted a team for local baseball players to play on after becoming too old for Little League or Senior Little League.

Presently, Burgess helps out as much as he can with the EMABL by taking tickets at games, helping out with field maintenance, distributing fliers and information packets to prospective players and local businesses, and performing other duties.

“It’s not the same as coaching, but at least I can still help out in some way,” said Burgess.