BANGOR – Two years ago, the ILLAM Central Junior League baseball team from Makati City, Philippines, was jubilant after winning its national title.

Then the team’s manager suddenly quit, saying he couldn’t raise the money needed to send the team to Guam for the Asia Pacific regional – one step short of the Junior League World Series.

It was enough to quash some of the players’ love for the sport.

“They were all excited to go, and we had to tell them they weren’t going,” recalled Luis Carlos “Arsenic” Laurel. “My son couldn’t understand why, and said he didn’t want to play anymore. We talked, and I told him to just continue playing, and that if next year they qualified for regionals I’d make sure they could go.”

Laurel kept that promise, and managed essentially the same Makati City players to the Asia Pacific Senior League final last year before losing to Agana, Guam, which went on to finish 2-2 at the 2005 Senior League World Series.

This year, they’ve made it all the way to the show – arriving early Thursday after a 31-hour flight capped off by a bus ride from Portland to Bangor, SLWS host city for the fifth year.

“We used to stay up watching the Little League World Series, and we wanted to go but we couldn’t beat any of the teams at the regional,” said Laurel, whose team opens play at 2:30 p.m. Sunday against U.S. West champ Pearl City, Hawaii.

“We’d win the Philippine series, then Guam or Saipan or Indonesia would beat us every year. We lost a lot of games, and we lost by a lot, but every year we figured out a little more what we needed to do.

“We got close last year, and this year we did something different, and we won.”

What this year’s team – which includes eight players back from last year – did differently was play more games. Instead of about 25 games in 2005, Laurel said the team played 57 games this year in preparation for the SLWS.

“That’s what the Japanese coaches told us, that we could practice all the time but nothing replaces playing games,” said Laurel. “We played against anyone. We played against college teams, we played against guys who were college players who played in a small league in the city. Anybody who would play us, we would play them.”

Four years ago a team from the Philippines reached the SLWS, only to lose its four games by a combined 79-10.

Laurel believes the general improvement in Philippine youth baseball and his team’s commitment to play more games will be reflected in a stronger performance this time.

“I think playing more games has just improved them in terms of teamwork and playing under game conditions, so I think this team is more prepared,” Laurel said.

The ILLAM (International Little League Association for Manila) Little League was formed about 20 years ago, but has undergone considerable change since then, Laurel said.

“It was started by U.S. expatriates,” he said. “There used to be a lot of American players, but when the U.S. bases left and a lot of U.S. interests were relocated, it became predominantly Filipino.”

The league boasts a unique schedule, with regular season play from October to February, followed by a national tournament in April and the regionals in late June.

That’s because summer is the rain season in the Philippines.

Since arriving in Bangor the team has practiced daily at Garland Street Field, and while it might not be Mansfield, it still looks good to the Philippine contingent.

“We’ve seen Mansfield Stadium and it’s beautiful, but this field is super, too, you can slide and not get hurt,” Laurel said. We play on fields where when you slide you can hurt, because it’s hard pan and there’s no grass. The infield’s all dirt where we play, and sometimes we play in parks where there are broken bottles and nails.”

The team also has spent the last two days adjusting to the 12-hour time difference between Bangor and Manila and overcoming the jet lag inherent in spending nearly two days either on an airplane or enduring airport layovers.

“The kids were all up at 3:30 this morning. They couldn’t sleep,” Laurel said. “Maybe today we’ll make the adjustment.”

Laurel and his players hope their experience at the SLWS – win or lose – will spur even more interest in Philippine baseball.

“This is a good sign,” he said. “A lot of the younger kids coming up now can see that we’ve sent a team to the World Series, and we can build on this.”