BANGOR – The price to be paid for following sons in their quest to be world champions was, in a word, priceless for the parents of the Pearl City, Hawaii, Senior League baseball team.

Each of the past two summers, Pearl City has advanced through district and state tournaments to U.S. West regionals in Oregon, then across the continent to the Senior League World Series at Mansfield Stadium – some 5,154 miles from home.

And the year before that, many of this same group of players and parents made the slightly shorter trip to Taylor, Mich., home of the Junior League World Series.

More than three weeks together on the road for three straight years has brought families together as one, sharing the same emotions, living both the exciting and mundane collectively.

“We depend on each other a lot,” said Chandra Sugitaya, the mother of Pearl City second baseman Cody Sugitaya. “We try to help each other out in terms of getting from one tournament to the next, trying to find places to stay. We were up here last year, so we tried to help everybody else who wasn’t here last year to make it a little easier for them. We’ve just had to really pull together and just be a family and help each other out.”

The exciting moments come on game days, the mundane along the trail that has led this group from Pearl City to Penobscot County.

“We just tried to organize everything for the boys,” said Candace Acosta, the mother of infielder Ryne Acosta and the designated ‘team mom’ of the Pearl City traveling party.

“Not only the meals that Bangor provides for the boys, but special meals the boys want, different potlucks if there’s something we want to feed the boys, any kinds of outings for the boys on their days off, laundry, we try to make sure the boys have everything they need. Everyone shares the load.”

Those parents also share something else – considerable financial sacrifice. While travel costs for players and coaches are picked up by Little League Baseball and meals and housing are provided by the host tournament committee, the parents must pick up their own tab for those basics as well as all the other incidentals needed for life on the road.

For the Pearl City parents, success adds up.

“With our plane flight and everything, I think it’s over $5,000 so far this year,” said Acosta. “For the past three years my son has made the World Series, and we still haven’t recovered from the first two years. So there’s no preparation, we just use plastic and max it out.

“But it’s worth it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him, something that I can be here with him and enjoy. This is his dream, to get to the World Series.”

Sugitaya, for one, should have known this was coming – both the success and the sacrifice.

Her father, Ray, is a former Little League coach in Pearl City with a knack for picking winners.

“He sees it as soon as the season starts,” she said. “He used to coach Little League with my brothers, and he would come and tell me for the past three years after their first game that he knows we’re going to the World Series.

“I would say, Dad, it’s a long way off, but he starts planning to go. He couldn’t make it here this year, but he said, ‘I told you that you were going to go.'”

As for the sacrifice, it’s a small price to pay – at least until the bills come in.

“A coach my son had about seven years ago told the team back then that the key to baseball is to make your parents spend as much as they can,” said Sugitaya. “So after the first year he said, ‘Mom, I did what coach said.’

“We thought it was once in a lifetime, and now here we are for the third time. This is priceless.”

Still, given that the road to the World Series has gone through regionals in Oregon each of the last three years – Forest City in 2004, Beaverton in 2005 and Salem this year – Sugitaya looks back and does see one cost-cutting opportunity not taken.

“We should have bought land there three years ago,” she said. “We would have saved a lot of money.”

One degree of separation

Falcon, Venezuela, and Pearl City, Hawaii, had never met before in tournament play, but came very close.

Both programs reached the 2004 Junior League World Series in Taylor, Mich., with Venezuela playing in the international pool and Pearl City -playing in the United States pool.

Pearl City advanced to the U.S. championship game before falling to Tampa, Fla., 5-0.

Venezuela won the international final to reach the JLWS championship game, where it lost a 5-2 decision to that same Tampa, Fla., team.

Tourney tidbits

Falcon, Venezuela, became the first undefeated Senior League World Series champion in the five years the tournament has been held in Bangor. The win by the Latin America champions also marked the first time a region has won more than two series titles during Bangor’s run as the host site. Curacao won the first Bangor SLWS in 2002, and three players off that team – Curt Smith, Arshwin Asjes and Eugene Offerman – were on hand for Saturday’s title game. Smith and Asjes are already playing Division I college baseball, Smith at Maine and Asjes at Temple, while Offerman will play at Division I Binghamton beginning next season.

Pool B all-stars claim victory

Saturday’s Senior League World Series championship game was preceded by an all-star game, with Pool B earning a 7-1 victory over Pool A.

Trevor Graham of U.S. Southwest champion Tulsa, Okla., paced the winners with two singles and three RBIs, while Tulsa teammate Jeff Comfort added a two-run single and Kyle Schmidt and Joel Martin, both of U.S. Central winner Madison, Wis., each singled home a run.

Richard Monroig of U.S. East champion Bloomfield, N.J., earned the pitching win, anchoring a Pool B staff that allowed just three hits.

Brett Barth of Canadian champion Regina, Saskatchewan, took the loss, though he did drive in Pool A’s lone run by singling home Paolo Jalaneoni of Asia Pacific champion Makati City, Philippines, in the top of the third inning.

The all-star teams are made up of three players from each team that did not make the championship game.