BANGOR – Bangor firefighter Troy Lare ignited a flame in his fellow firefighters Saturday night on the baseball field.

Lare, who has been with the fire department for more than two decades, is making a tradition of playing for the Boston Red Sox Alumni team when it comes to Bangor each year to play against his fire department in a charity baseball game at Mansfield Stadium.

Five years ago the Red Sox Alumni team came up without a catcher and Lare offered to fill in for them since his team had three catchers, said firefighter John Higgins, who pitched for the fire department in the game. Saturday night Lare did it again, leading the alumni team to a blowout win over his fellow firefighters.

“I was going to try to hit him [with the baseball] and then I decided to just fire him [from the fire department],” said Higgins jokingly. “The guys rib him a lot [for playing against his fire department’s team].

“Since they continue to win, he stays with them.”

The charity baseball game, designed to raise money for the Bangor Fire Department, was founded by Dave Bickford, Harold Russell, Higgins and Lare in 1994, according to Higgins. This year they raised around $35,000, Higgins said.

While Lare may get bothered a bit at work for playing against his colleagues, he’s thrilled to play with former professional baseball players.

“It’s an honor,” he said. “They played in the big leagues and I got the honor of catching for them. It went very good. We had a blast.”

Alex MacPhail, who travels with the alumni team to broadcast with them, knows both rosters very well and can sense Lare’s enthusiasm.

“He’s all excited about it,” MacPhail said. “This is his thing. For him to say, ‘Man, I played with these guys!’ [is awesome]. It’s almost like being in a big-league game for him.”

The Red Sox Alumni team made sure the crowd was excited, too.

“We’re here to entertain and have fun,” said Ozzie Virgil Jr., a former major league player who went into the stands to spark up the crowd. “I’ll go any place to help out people. I enjoy it up here in Bangor.”

The team also enjoys having Lare on the team.

“He’s been doing this as long as I can remember,” said Ken Ryan, who pitched for the Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies from 1992-1999. “He does a fantastic job for us. He’s very knowledgeable about the game.”

Bill Lee, who pitched for the Red Sox and Montreal Expos, couldn’t agree more. He started for the alumni team and was one of the event’s largest attractions.

“He knows how to pitch everybody and always wants to play with the club that wins,” Lee said.

Lare isn’t complaining. Over the last five years, he said, he has caught former Red Sox pitchers such as Ryan, Jeff Plympton, Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, Lee and Jim Corsi.

Catching for former Red Sox pitchers has made Lare’s job a little bit easier.

“I don’t have to field as many pitches as their catcher,” he said jokingly. “It’s fun to catch a pitcher that knows what he’s doing.”

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net