Baseball, running top events on holiday

Professional baseball returned to Maine on Patriot’s Day for the first time since the Triple-A Maine Phillies pulled out of Old Orchard Beach after the 1988 season.

The Portland Sea Dogs, the Florida Marlins’ Double-A affiliate, played their inaugural game at Hadlock Field before a capacity crowd of over 6,000 baseball fans and others who just had to hear Kathie Lee Gifford sing the national anthem and see her husband, Frank, throw the first pitch.

Monday’s game was the first professional baseball game played in Maine’s largest city since the Portland Pilots of the old New England League disbanded in 1949.

But their new home field was not especially kind to the Sea Dogs. They lost 7-6 to the Albany-Colonie Yankees. It was the new Maine team’s ninth straight defeat.

Monday was a busy day for many Maine sports enthusiasts, especially runners.

Giles Norton, 38, of Veazie was the first Maine runner to finish the 98th Boston Marathon. He finished a respectable 90th in 2 hours, 30 minutes, 48 seconds on a day when both of the men’s and women’s course records were broken. The time was a personal record by three minutes for Norton.

Ellsworth’s Richard Miller, 40, finished in 2:37:04, while Bangor’s Patrick Sullivan, 32, ran a 2:41:55.

Meanwhile, Todd Coffin of Bath cruised to an easy victory in the annual five-mile road race in Portland. He cut through a strong headwind to beat the second-place runner by 54 seconds. Julia Kirtland of Harpswell won the women’s division.