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BANGOR – It’s official. The Bangor Lumberjacks are in the playoffs and are guaranteed at least one home game, but they won’t play any at Winkin Complex.
The Lumberjacks clinched at least a wild-card playoff spot with two wins over the weekend and will start the playoffs on the road either in Lynn, Mass., or Little Falls, N.J.
When they return home on Friday, Sept. 10, they will host their first playoff game at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.
Due to a scheduling conflict with Husson College’s homecoming football game and the resulting expense and effort to switch Winkin Complex’s artificial turf field from a football to baseball playing surface and back again, the Lumberjacks will take their home games on the road and over to Fourteenth Street.
“We originally thought the Lumberjacks’ season would end Sept. 1, but it goes through the sixth, and we scheduled our first home game on Sept. 11,” explained Husson Dean of Education Jim Doughty. “That only gave us five days to make the conversion. We would have done that, but only if they would have converted it back to baseball and then back again to football at their expense.
“That’s very labor intensive and costly, so they elected to find some other place to play.”
Lumberjacks general manager Curt Jacey’s first call was to Mansfield officials two weeks ago.
“The city and David Mansfield and [Mansfield field director] Ron St. Pierre have been fantastic in accommodating us,” Jacey said. “The alternative was us not having any games in Bangor, but they really stepped up to the plate and helped us out.”
Mansfield will host at least one and as many as six playoff games, depending on whether the Lumberjacks are swept in the first round or play the maximum number of games in the semifinals and advance to do the same thing in the finals (both are best-of-five game series).
The problem with converting Winkin Complex from baseball to football and back again lies in covering the “cutouts” on the baseball field where home plate, the other three bases, and the infield dirt are exposed.
“We think it will take three days minimum to do that and that doesn’t include lining the field,” said Doughty. “We think in the future, we’ll have a system developed to do that in two days and the cost should be minimized substantially.”
This is the first time the cutouts will be used on the field and the extra cost and work is due to the newness of the process and the fact workers have to attach material to them before installation.
So just a little over three weeks after hosting the Senior League World Series, Mansfield will host its first professional baseball contest.
“We pretty much hit them at the right time where that had just ended and they hadn’t torn down the temporary facilities they set up for the World Series,” Jacey said. “The phone lines are still set up so pretty much we can just show up and play.”
Mansfield workers will staff the concession stands and collect all proceeds from those, but the Lumberjacks will keep admission proceeds (ticket revenue). The teams will use the locker room facilities at adjacent Sawyer Arena.
“They will be in charge of all the field maintenance since we’re basically renting it out on a per-day basis,” said Jacey. “I love the facility and I’m kind of excited to play there with the stands right on the field and I like the location too.”
Tickets (all will be general admission) for the Northeast League semifinals, which go on sale today, are $7 for adults and $5 for children. Tickets for the finals are $8 and $6.
Hammerin’ Hammond
There was a lot of head scratching going on when Bangor outfielder Derry Hammond wasn’t selected for the Northeast League All-Star game last month, despite the fact he was leading the league in home runs.
At the time, Hammond simply shrugged off the snub and said he guessed he’d have to do more to make sure it didn’t happen again.
After becoming the first player to be named the NEL’s batter of the week for the third time this year, Hammond is now a league MVP favorite. It’s kind of hard not to be when you’re leading the league in home runs (23) and extra-base hits (4), you’re fourth in RBIs with 64, and second in slugging percentage (.612). Throw in the fact that he just broke a league record for RBIs in one game with nine Sunday and “monster season” is an understatement.
Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net
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