Apathetic fans missed top Legion tourney

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Commentary

It has become painfully obvious that people in Eastern Maine simply aren’t amateur baseball fans unless the team they’re watching has University of Maine written across its shirts.

The attendance at the American Legion Northeast Regional at the University of Maine’s Mahaney Diamond was an embarrassment. It was the first time an American Legion Northeast Regional was held in Maine.

Based on the turnout, perhaps it should be the last, at least for this area. Maybe the Portland area would draw better. It certainly couldn’t do any worse.

The crowds were better when Brewer and Biddeford played. But not that much better. Both were eliminated in two games and thus weren’t involved in any games on the weekend, when there is better drawing potential.

Brewer’s Jim White, the local tourney director, and his staff of volunteer workers were superb. They worked tirelessly, they bent over backward to ensure that this would be a top-quality experience for the players, coaches, fans and media.

They certainly succeeded.

White, who made this whole thing possible, said he was “very, very happy” with the way things went except the crowds.

“The attendance was disappointing,” said White, noting that there are approximately 100,000 people in the greater Bangor area.

Unfortunately, 99,950 had no interest in the tournament.

I don’t think more than 300 people attended any session after Brewer and Biddeford were eliminated and more than 200 came from the two areas that were playing.

I understand that people have a lot of interests and want to take advantage of the good weather. But the admission prices were very reasonable ($3 per two-game session for adults, $1 for children) and the baseball was entertaining.

With the exception of the attendance, coaches and players said they enjoyed the tournament, particularly playing on Mahaney Diamond.

“This is the best field I’ve ever played on,” said Hartford Post (Vt.) first baseman Keith Blake. “And it’s a pretty campus.”

“The field was great. A lot of us will probably never play on a field this nice again,” said West Warwick (R.I.) infielder Mark McCloskey.

“You won’t find many fields better than this one,” said East Hartford Coach Jim Bidwell. “And the people have treated us so well. Everything has been outstanding.”

“I absolutely loved it here,” said West Warwick Coach John Parente. “Everything was first class.”

Hoboken assistant coach Mike Mulvaney said, “This is one of the better places I’ve ever been to. The people are great and the field was very nice.”

The facility and the friendliness of the people overshadowed the two negative aspects of the tournament that were mentioned: the cafeteria food and the warm temperatures at Oxford Hall where the teams were housed.

“Cafeteria food is cafeteria food (no matter where you go),” said McCloskey.

In analyzing the teams, I’d have to say Nashua would have been the best representative from this regional and had the better chance to do some damage at the AL World Series. That’s based on the fact they had three top-notch pitchers in Dan Greene, Mike Welch and Jeff Hill, who were all capable of winning AL World Series games, and the team made just four errors in its five games.

But the championship East Hartford team showed a unique character that enabled it to overcome its 21 errors in 6 games. East Hartford had a scrappiness, heart and determination that enabled it to win four of its five games with runs in the eighth or ninth innings.

They scored one in the eighth to beat Hoboken 2-1; got one in the eighth and two in the ninth to overcome a 13-11 deficit and beat Lowell 14-13; and scored five in the eighth inning to erase a 6-2 deficit and beat Hoboken 7-6. They then dramatically scored four times in the ninth inning of the championship game at the expense of hard-throwing University of Southern Maine relief ace Welch to rally from a 5-2 margin and beat Nashua 6-5.

They beat Nashua twice (11-3 in the other game) so you have to say they certainly earned their title.

They hit .276 and averaged 7.8 runs per game compared to Nashua’s .302 average and 6.2 runs per game. East Hartford got the clutch hit, made the big pitch and the clutch fielding play when it had to.

East Hartford Coach Jim Bidwell said the team’s defensive lapses can be partially attributed to the Diamond baseball, which they weren’t used to.

Nevertheless, I feel their shaky defense, below-average throwing arms behind the plate and lack of punch in the bottom of the order will prompt an early exit from the AL World Series. Stu Perry and tourney MVP Chris Sawyer are quality pitchers with excellent curveballs but if they can’t get their breaking balls over in the ALWS, they’ll struggle.

The games were a bit sloppy defensively (89 errors in 15 games) but 12 of the games were decided by two runs or less and another was decided by three. There was great parity and that made for an exciting tournament which deserved much bigger crowds.