All roads lead to Mansfield Players, Umpires come from near and far for Senior League Series

BANGOR – Some arrived early, some arrived late. Some teams arrived without much of a family or fan contingent and others were accompanied by hordes. Some came from down the street while others traveled across the ocean and a few time zones.

From as near as Bangor and as far as Vilnius, Lithuania; the Netherlands; Curacao; and Makati City, Philippines, but no matter where they hailed from, they all had a common destination, purpose and goal.

They came to Mansfield Stadium on Saturday afternoon to kick off the seventh annual Senior League World Series and chase a dream of becoming world champions.

Some of them, like Fred Tempels, come just to be a part of it all – at great expense and effort.

“Eventually, it took us 24 hours to get here. There were layovers, delays and reschedulings,” said the 49-year-old Tempels. “We left Wednesday morning at 5 and arrived Thursday at 1 in the morning.”

Tempels came all the way from the Netherlands, and, just like the other 11 umpires picked to work the 10-team international tournament, he paid his own way.

“I’ve been doing this total about 20 years, but I’ve been doing Little League about 10,” Tempels said. “I applied for another World Series last year and got this one this year.

“When I started, we didn’t have Little League teams. Our most popular sport is soccer, but baseball is fairly popular.”

Tempels is turning his trip into a working vacation as he and his wife, Jeantine, plan to stay around after the Series for a little while.

“After the tournament, my wife and I will be tourists in Maine for a week,” he said. “But I do it for the kids. The kids are the basis for baseball and if you can make it happen for them, it’s worth doing.”

That’s a common refrain for umpires, officials and coaches, even when things don’t go according to plan.

“Our [Canada regional championship] game was backed up about four hours Friday and from the time we won the game, we had an hour to get back to the hotel, pack up and get back on the bus,” said Mike Addy, coach for the Canadian championship team from Surrey, British Columbia. “What happened was the night before, they had a suspended game and played at 10 the next morning, but with the weather, it started at 4 o’clock. That game ended at quarter to 6 and we started at quarter to 7.”

As it turned out, the Canadians arrived in time to see and take part in opening ceremonies Saturday afternoon and evening. Good thing they arrived in time, they had to play the first game of the tourney at noon Sunday. No rest for the weary.

“We’ve had 10 days in this time zone now and the kids will get a good night’s sleep tonight, so we should be fine,” Addy said. “We don’t mind playing the first game even with our schedule the last few days.

“We’re playing the local team and figure we’ll have a big crowd so we’re looking forward to it.”

British Columbia center fielder Adam Quan sure is. He couldn’t wait to get back to Bangor after his team finished 2-2 last year and barely missed a chance to move into the Series’ championship round.

“We had a tight game with Hawaii, so we were really close to moving on. We could have knocked out the champion team, Georgia, if we’d won it,” said Quan, one of three players back from that squad. “We also have a bunch of guys who played in the Junior League World Series, so we have a lot of experienced players.”

Besides wanting a second chance at some unfinished business, Quan is looking forward to meeting other teams’ players and reconnecting with some guys he got to know last year from Vilnius.

Kevin Gray, manager for the U.S. Central championship team from New Philadelphia, Ohio, knows the importance of players reconnecting from year to year.

“I’ve told all the kids that if we come out of this week and you haven’t met all these other players, that’s really a disappointment,” said Gray. “We’re really stressing them meeting teams, especially the international players, to extend a hand and also be a good host to them as well.”

Gray and his team went from 100-degree heat in Columbia, Mo., to 60-degree temperatures here, but the rain was constant. Still, he doesn’t mind.

“It was raining hard and pretty chilly, but today it’s cleared up great,” Gray said. “It was quite a swing with 40 degrees’ difference, but this feels a whole lot better to us than 100.”

Whatever the conditions, Gray’s kids share the same attitude with those on the other nine teams.

“These guys just can’t wait to get out there and play ball,” he said.

aneff@bangordailynews.net

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