Maine trio enjoys return

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BOCA RATON, Fla. – Every player on the University of Maine baseball team is glad to be in Florida for spring break.

It’s a chance to escape the last vestiges of the Maine winter to play ball in warm weather on green grass.

The UMaine program hasn’t featured many baseball players from Florida to the Northeast. Coach Steve Trimper hopes Danny Menendez, Jose Mendoza and A.J. Balsinde are part of a new trend.

The trio from Miami have joined the Bears this season after honing their skills at Christopher Columbus High School.

“It’s a baseball factory,” Trimper said of the Columbus program, which produced the likes of New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.

Trimper has become close friends with Columbus coach Joe Weber and the relationship has yielded some good recruits for the Bears.

Mendoza, a lefthanded pitcher, called Trimper the day he got the UMaine job last August.

“I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. “He’s a two-time Dade County Pitcher of the Year, Division 6A,” Trimper said.

Mendoza had planned to attend Florida State, but the Seminoles ultimately didn’t come up with the scholarship money they had promised.

“I just went along with Trimper,” Mendoza said. “He told me it was a great place. I took him at his word and I like it.”

Trimper was more familiar with Menendez and Balsinde, both of whom he had recruited to attend Manhattan College last year.

While the pair balked after learning Trimper was taking the Maine job, the coach implored them to honor their original decisions to play in New York.

“It (Manhattan) wasn’t like we thought it was going to be, but he wanted us to stick it out over there,” Balsinde said. “It just didn’t work out.”

Good friends Balsinde and Menendez needed only a couple of months at Manhattan before they decided it wasn’t the right fit.

“We didn’t really like it much and we wanted to go where coach [Trimper] was,” said Menendez, who knew a little about Maine – in the summer.

“I’ve been to Maine for vacation, to Bar Harbor,” he explained.

By the start of the second semester the other two-thirds of the Miami contingent was enrolled at UMaine. All three are expected to contribute for the Bears.

They’re happy to be home for a brief visit.

“It’s awesome. It feels great to be in the warm weather,” Mendoza said. “I’ve seen [my family] a couple times already.”

Menendez (.273, 3 RBIs) has earned the starting second base job because of his slick fielding. His brother, Gus, is the starting second baseman at the University of Miami.

“This kid was supposedly the better of the two (brothers),” Trimper said. “He’s got great hands – and he certainly has the range.”

Mendoza is expected to be UMaine’s No. 5 or 6 starter and get plenty of innings. He has worked three innings so far.

“He’s not an overpowering guy,” Trimper said. “He’s 83-84 (mph) but he’s got the sickest movement on the ball that you could imagine, and he’s a lefty.”

Balsinde is a rangy righthander at 6-foot-2, 165 pounds. He has pitched 6 2/3 innings already. He is relishing the respite in south Florida.

“We didn’t know what we were getting because I hadn’t seen the kid pitch since a year ago,” Trimper said. “Then he’s out there throwing the ball 85-86, moving the ball around and has a good change.

“I was out there trying to fill in for next year and things kind of fell into our lap a little bit for this season,” Trimper added. “We’re fortunate we picked up a couple kids during the break.”

While Menendez, Balsinde and Mendoza already realize there will be some challenges in adapting to Maine weather, they’re excited about the chance to play for the Bears.

“Everybody was running around with a T-shirt on and I was in my sweater,” Mendoza said of his arrival in Orono. “But I got used to it, all bundled up.”

For now, the Miami crew is enjoying being back home.

“It’s pretty cool. We got to see our families and it’s really the only time the whole year,” Balsinde said.