It may not be as unusual these days to find radio broadcasters travelling thousands of miles to cover sporting events, but a 4,400-mile round trip to Bangor from Curacao … For Senior League baseball games?

Welcome to Curacao, one of five Caribbean Islands making up the Netherlands Antilles where baseball is the undisputed king.

“Baseball is our national sport, and pastime like you guys in the states,” said Jorge Sulbaran, color analyst for Radio Giminis (106.1 FM), one of 25 stations operating in the tropical island nation measuring 171 square miles. “We have about 10 radio stations that do baseball in Curacao. If you do not do baseball, people do not even know you are there.”

Sulbaran, play-by-play man Jorge Levi Carolus, and director/owner/technician Carlos Ribero traveled from Curacao to provide live coverage of the Senior League World Series in Bangor last week.

The sport is a passion for Sulbaran, who is more than happy to point out that his 12-year-old son is “one of the best pitchers on the island.”

“I’ve been broadcasting games for the past 25 years,” said Sulbaran, who also owns his own travel agency (guess who made travel arrangements for the team and fans?), works as an interior decorator, and operates a baseball school, where he helps instruct about 180 kids.

Sulbaran’s broadcast partner of six years, Carolus, is also a baseball fanatic. The owner of a contracting company has a son, Vladimir, who is playing Single A ball in Venezuela for the Florida Marlins minor league system.

“I, for a long time now, 10 years, have been broadcasting. I was also a manager before Little League and I have been involved in baseball for 20 years,” said Carolus, who calls baseball his hobby.

Radio Giminis is one of many stations to do baseball, but one of only 10 or so that does youth- level baseball coverage.

“For the past couple years, our station has become involved because I feel it is something that we have to do to promote baseball,” Sulbaran explained. “Little League season is from January up until now, so we do baseball about eight months of the year, maybe 30 to 40 games.”

The Radio Giminis crew brought some fellow baseball junkies as the station helped chip in to bring 25 relatives and fans of the Latin American, and now world, championship team to Bangor to cheer on their group of 15- and 16-year-olds.

It turned out to be well worth the trip as the team won the first youth baseball world title ever for Curacao.

“We have been gaining a lot of audience because we do youth baseball and the last couple years, our teams have been very successful,” Sulbaran explained. “Our Little League team has been in Williamsport the last two years and now we are here in Senior Little League. Right now, everybody’s listening to baseball because it’s the most important thing going on this week in Curacao. Next week they will listen again as we go to Williamsport for Little League.”

Sulbaran says the broadcasts are so popular, he estimates the entire population of 150,000 is listening to games.

None of the Curacao contingent had ever been to Maine. Not even Sulbaran, who travels stateside quite often on business trips. They will not soon forget their experience in the Pine Tree State.

“Maine is not like a lot of cities and states. The people here are very friendly,” he said. “They welcome us to the city and I’m enjoying myself very well. People recognize you here. If you wander the streets in New York, they will not even notice you’re there.”

“We brought warm clothes with us, but it is not something I needed to bring,” said Carolus with a laugh. “The weather here right now is better than in Curacao, and we did not expect to have that.

“I like coming here to Bangor. It is a good place to visit. Hopefully we will visit often.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-810-8600, e-mail aneff@bangordailynews.net