Sea Dogs, EL are waterlogged Portland just one away from tying club postponement mark

Despite playing only six of their scheduled 13 Eastern League games so far this season, the Portland Sea Dogs are on the verge of equaling a franchise record.

With one more postponement, the Sea Dogs will equal the team record for postponements in a season (eight, 2005), and that’s with 136 games still to play.

Tuesday was the latest rainout as a doubleheader with Trenton was postponed to noon today.

“After a while, all these doubleheaders start to build up and you can only play a certain number in a certain time frame, so rescheduling has really become a nightmare to make sure you’re within league limits,” said Chris Cameron, the Sea Dogs’ director of public relations.

Almost every element has conspired against the Sea Dogs and the rest of their league brethren as snow postponed the home opener, rain has washed out several other home dates, and high winds actually damaged Hadlock Field.

“All the wood framework around the left center field scoreboard has collapsed, and we had some fencing up on some of our seating that collapsed,” Cameron explained. “A lot of signage has blown away, including the ones honoring all our players now in the big leagues [for the Red Sox].”

Of the four players so honored – Josh Beckett, Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon and Dustin Pedroia – only one (Pedroia) remained attached.

Ironically, the lighthouse, which rises up with a bright, revolving light and accompanying fog horn from its right center field base whenever a Sea Dogs player hits a home run – has weathered the storms without any noticeable damage.

In the meantime, Portland players and coaches have tried to get their work in and practice as well as they can, wherever they can.

“It’s been a challenge because they haven’t been able to get on the field to work out,” said Cameron. “They’ve been over the University of Southern Maine’s facility and they went down to Lowell, Mass., for a day to play at Lowell’s outdoor facility… Anything to keep their arms going and staying loose.”

The greatest concern now, despite a league rule barring any more than two straight days of doubleheaders, is a shortage of pitching if much more of the E.L. schedule gets bumped back.

“You don’t want to overwork the pitching staff,” Cameron said. “The worst-case scenario might be if they call up a Single-A pitcher to come up and fill in for a game or two, but even that might be tough this year because the Single-A teams are getting rained out as well.”

The silver lining in these schedule storm clouds is that almost every other E.L. team is equally affected. Through Monday, the 3-3 Sea Dogs were one of six E.L. teams with just six games played. Five of those are fellow northern division teams. Trenton (8-1), Reading (6-3) and Bowie (5-4) led the way with nine games each.

That leaves guys like first-year Sea Dogs manager Arnie Beyeler trying to find creative alternatives to hold practices for his players.

“We have facilities where we’ve been to throw and have guys hit in cages,” said Beyeler. “We’ll play catch and long toss and have bullpens get their work in. You’ve gotta do what you can do. You can’t fight it.

“You just have to wait until you can get out there and it’s probably going to be another or week or two before we can get in a groove at all. It’s almost like going through spring training all over again.”

With high winds, steady rain, and flooding knocking out power in many areas of southern Maine Monday, the Sea Dogs opened up their facilities at Hadlock to the players.

“These guys have spent plenty of time with each other. Last night, with this place being a shelter, we had seven or eight guys staying here because the places they’re living didn’t have power,” Beyeler explained. “Some guys slept on couches or the training tables or whatever. We had some games set up and some guys played cards or watched TV. It’s better than being at home with no electricity.”

Trenton Thunder players and coaches tried to hold a practice at Bowdoin College Tuesday.

The news isn’t all bad, however, as Beyeler tried to put a positive spin on things.

“Well, it gives us a pretty good excuse if we don’t come out and play very well to start,’ he said with a chuckle. “Seriously, we’re all in the same boat in this league and it’s nice because we won’t be the only team getting hammered trying to make all these games up later in the year.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net