Senior League series draws far-flung families

BANGOR – Among the families that have traveled great distances to watch their sons play baseball in the Senior League World Series for 15- and 16-year-old boys, Marcel and Kerry Verrier brought everything they thought they’d need in their saddlebags.

The couple rode their Honda Goldwing motorcycle from Calgary, Alberta, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, to see their son Sean and his teammates win the Senior League championship in Canada. Then they mounted up and headed to Bangor for the Senior League World Series being played this week at Mansfield Stadium.

“The night they won in Thunder Bay, everybody was on the phone trying to make travel arrangements to get here,” Marcel Verrier said Sunday night as they waited for the Canadian team to play its first game. “It’s not a simple matter getting here from there [by plane].”

The Verriers planned their vacation around the tournament schedule, but hadn’t really planned on traveling 2,500 miles from home. That was a bonus.

They avoided interstate highway systems and took less traveled roads, taking three days to get from Calgary to Thunder Bay and four days to get to Bangor from there.

“Everywhere we went, we asked people, ‘Guess where we’re going?'” said Kerry Verrier with a laugh. “Some of them knew where Bangor was, but I think a lot of them thought we were just crazy.”

Harry Yada’s trip didn’t take quite as long, but he was home in Hilo, Hawaii, for just 16 hours before he caught a plane back to the mainland Thursday morning.

“My daughter played last week in the U.S. Kids World Golf Championship in Williamsburg, Va.,” he said. “I got home at 5 p.m., found out the team had won and got on a plane at 9:40 the next morning.”

For his son’s team that won the West regional championship, however, it has been a three-week odyssey from Hawaii to Oregon to California to Maine.

All they know about Bangor is lobsters and Stephen King, said Lester Bondallian, who’s traveled with the Hawaiian team all three weeks. They’re finding that Mainers don’t know much more about their hometown, which is on Hawaii, “the big island,” and still has an active volcano.

Most of the boys playing in the series have parents who will spend the week cheering from the stands, but the West regional champions brought their own cheerleading squad. The girls brought signs, pom-poms and matching green T-shirts from Brenham, Texas, population 13,000, to cheer on their boys.

Margaret Crowson, 13, Emily Edmunds, 14, Tracie Kramer, 16, Molli Rau, 14, and the Steele sisters, Ashley, 20, and Carli, 12, arrived in town Saturday and have already checked out the Bangor Mall. The Texas girls, who usually shop in Houston, weren’t very impressed, but said they were looking forward to going to Bar Harbor and maybe catching a glimpse of Martha Stewart or another rich celebrity.

They had more serious things on their minds Sunday night as their team took the field to play its first game.

“We’re here to cheer these guys on and make tea,” declared Tracie Kramer. “We have to make this special tea for our pitcher, Tyler Favion. He says it makes him play better.”

The girls refused to share the recipe, but swore it was a strictly legal concoction.

Since most of the teams and their families arrived on Saturday, few had time for much sightseeing. All agreed, however, that the one site they had seen the most so far – the baseball diamond built with a donation from Stephen and Tabitha King – was beautiful and well-maintained.

Bangor may not be a shopper’s paradise, but for the teams that have played hard and traveled long hours to get to the Senior League World Series, playing on the field the Kings built is nothing like going to the places he takes readers in his novels.

For the families sitting in the stands watching their kids play their hearts outs, it’s sometimes much, much scarier.