Pro Baseball Comes to the Maine Coast

By Ted Nichols

PRO BASEBALL COMES TO THE MAINE COAST is a fictional baseball story about a newly-formed low minor league baseball team that played in a beautiful region of Maine known as Penobscot Bay. The team joined a little-known league made up of independent professional teams that did not have an affiliation with a major league team. A local businessman and a successful small college baseball coach joined together to make something that seemed to be impossible become a reality. A team made up of undrafted small college players played their first season with determination. They were a bunch of team-oriented overachievers. This “feel good” story of the first season is an example of how a sports team can be the bond that can bring an area of small towns together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984579188

Ted Nichols

TED NICHOLS has followed baseball closely for many years. He lives in the Philadelphia area and has been a loyal fan of the Phillies. He has coached youth baseball and softball teams. Ted is also a small-business consultant. He is an author of a book about financing a small-business. Ted’s family roots are in Maine and he is a regular summer visitor.

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Copyright © 2020 by Ted Nichols.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/14/2020

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Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Penobscot Bay

Chapter 3 The Future Team Owner

Chapter 4 A Dedicated Coach and Mentor

Chapter 5 The East Coast Baseball League

Chapter 6 The Birth of A Franchise

Chapter 7 Getting Started

Chapter 8 A Hectic Preseason

Chapter 9 Forming A Roster

Chapter 10 The First Season

Chapter 11 A Pennant Chase

Chapter 12 The ECBL Playoffs

Chapter 13 A Series to Remember

Chapter 14 Time to Head Home

One

Introduction

This story is pure fiction. Penobscot Bay and the locations mentioned in this story exist. The remainder of this story is the sole creation of the author. No professional baseball team currently exists in the beautiful region of Maine known as Penobscot Bay, a popular destination for summer vacationers and tourists. Penobscot Bay is the largest bay in Maine located in the mid-coastal region of the state. In the nineteen fifties, after World War II, town adult baseball teams in the Penobscot Bay area played against each other in spirited games during the weekend. The quality of play was very good. The games were well attended as the residents took great satisfaction from beating another nearby town team. The adult teams slowly went out of existence in the nineteen sixties.

Current residents have no baseball teams to watch in person after Memorial Day. The high school baseball season is over. This story is about a professional team playing in a ballpark on the pretty shore of Penobscot Bay. The owner of the new team is a successful residential real estate investor residing in the small town of Searsport at the northern-most part of the bay. He was concerned about the modest incomes of many residents living near his home. He wanted to make an investment in a local business that would provide opportunities to residents that need additional income to support their families. He loved watching high school and college games. His son played baseball for the University of Maine. He really missed watching games during the summer months and he felt that area residents and possibly even tourists also felt the same way. The owner needed to find someone to manage the team. He found a long-time coach of a small college baseball team located in an out-of-the-way Maine town. They joined together to make something that seemed to be impossible become a reality.

There are numerous independent professional baseball leagues operating with success throughout the United States. The teams are not affiliated with a major league team. This story is about a team that was able to join a relatively new independent league with teams in New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This story is not about major league prospects who will someday earn salaries that will support them for a lifetime. It is about young players who love to play baseball and want to be able to tell their friends and neighbors that they once were a professional baseball player.

Two

Penobscot Bay

It seemed to be a ridiculous idea to build a ballpark for a new professional baseball team somewhere near the shore of Penobscot Bay. Many people felt that a minor league baseball team would attract little interest. The best way to describe the largest bay in Maine is to imagine that you are aboard a sightseeing boat coming down the Penobscot River from the city of Bangor. The boat passes through the town of Bucksport, a river town that is the sight of a closed paper manufacturing plant. Bucksport is another casualty of the decline in the paper manufacturing industry in Maine. Shortly afterward, the boat passes the large unpopulated island known as Sears Island and enters Penobscot Bay. The modest-size town of Searsport with a population of approximately 3,000 can be seen when the boat passes Sears Island. It is the location of the second largest deep water seaport in Maine. The port operation is an important employer in the area, although advanced port operating methods have held down the quantity of jobs available. A manufacturing plant is nearby representing the only major industrial production operation in the area. The plant produces materials used in paper manufacturing and food processing operations.

Similar to the seaport, technology has reduced the need for a large quantity of employees at the plant. Searsport holds a prominent place in history books as the location where many merchant sailing ships were built in the late 1800’s. The town is the location of the Penobscot Marine Museum that attracts many visitors each year who enjoy learning about the rich maritime history of the region. Searsport has seen little change in the past two generations. It is not considered a major resort town. Most of the residents in Searsport have modest incomes. Many of them support their families by operating their own small businesses.

Belfast, the next town on the bay less than ten miles from Searsport, has enjoyed an impressive revival in the last thirty years. The population has grown to approximately 7,000. A large credit card company, MBNA, relocated a significant portion of its marketing and back-office operations to Belfast in the early 1990’s. The MBNA credit card operation provided increased jobs that resulted in population growth. MBNA was acquired by Bank of America and the huge global bank has continued to be a major Belfast employer. MBNA’S commitment to Belfast caused an increase in retail and service businesses. The well-protected harbor became an attractive location for pleasure boat owners. A large boat yard that stores and repairs huge yachts started operations on the shore of the harbor in 2013. A boat building business also began operations on the harbor waterfront. Belfast harbor is now a leading working waterfront in the Maine mid-coastal area. A lobster meal is one of the biggest highlights of a Maine vacation. A large lobster retail and wholesale business is located on the shore of the harbor. Belfast is now a must-see destination for tourists with a wide variety of unique retail stores and nice restaurants with a great view of the beautiful harbor. Artists have brought their creative works to shops in the town. The scenery provided by the beautiful harbor brings many happy tourists to Belfast each year.

A sightseeing boat in the northern part of the bay will approach the island of Islesboro, a long island that divides Penobscot Bay into a western bay and an eastern bay. Islesboro contains summer colonies of attractive shorefront homes that can be reached by a ferry service operating from the small resort town of Lincolnville, ten miles from Belfast. Northport and Bayside are pretty colonies of summer homes on the shore of the western bay near Belfast. As the sightseeing boat proceeds down the western bay, the breathtaking view of the Camden Hills becomes the highlight of the coastline.

Mount Battie and Mount Megunticook are very close to the shoreline. The view of the towering hills as seen from a boat is dramatically beautiful.

Even more dramatic in beauty is the view of the bay from the top of Mount Battie. Cars can drive up Mount Battie on a road built by the park service. On a clear day in the summer, there is no better place to enjoy the beauty of the bay and the surrounding shoreline area than from the top of Mount Battie.

The picturesque town of Camden is at the base of the Camden Hills, approximately one half hour on Route ONE from Belfast. This town appears on many postcards that show the beauty of the Maine coast. It has a population of 5,000 that triples during the summer with the arrival of tourists and summer residents. Many of the summer residents are wealthy with spacious summer homes. Camden is full of antique, gift and specialty shops that provide a great shopping experience. The shoppers have a choice of many restaurants where they can enjoy a menu that the Maine coast is famous for. Lobsters and lobster sandwiches are in great demand. Camden harbor is packed with expensive pleasure boats. Visitors can enjoy a wide variety of boat tours that provide a memorable trip on the gorgeous Penobscot Bay. Camden is the home port of vacation sailing vessels known as Windjammers.

The Windjammers are tall-masted former cargo schooners that were repaired and refurbished into vessels that can take groups of vacationers on a week-long sailing tour of the bay. It is a vacation they will never forget.

The small harbor town of Rockport is a pretty place for a sightseeing boat to stop for a while. Rockport is only a short distance from Camden. After Rockport, the next stop is the large town of Rockland with a population of 8,000. The Rockland harbor is filled with many fishing and lobster boats. Lobster remains a very important revenue producer for the local economy. Rockland is also a departure point for the Maine State Ferry Service to the Penobscot Bay islands of North Haven, Vinalhaven and Matinicus. The town has enjoyed an increase in tourism in recent years. The downtown area has been significantly improved with many unique shops, restaurants and art galleries. The famous art gallery, Farnsworth Art Museum, is located in the town. Rockland has become a commercial center with an influx of numerous small businesses. This has provided an economic boost to the area and has resulted in Rockland being no longer called a fish town. A nearby airport is the destination of commercial flights from Boston on small commuter aircraft.

A sightseeing boat can cruise away from the towns on the western shore and give passengers a spectacular view of the many islands in the bay. Vinalhaven and North Haven have rocky shores and acres of undeveloped land filled with green pine trees. It is a great experience visiting the little fishing villages on the islands. The boat can navigate through the islands and enter the eastern Penobscot Bay. The harbor town of Castine is a highlight of a boat trip on the eastern bay. Castine has a harbor filled with pleasure boats and lobster boats. The town is the location of the Maine Maritime Academy. MMA is a small college that provides majors in marine engineering, marine sciences and business management. MMA owns a large ocean-going vessel that is operated by students on training cruises to US and international ports. The eastern bay is loaded with small unpopulated islands. The larger island of Deer Isle is the location of Stonington, another working town and harbor filled with fishing and lobster boats. The last two stops for a sightseeing boat would be the islands of Isle Au Haut and Matinicus. The boat trip to these two islands would be far out in the bay where the Gulf of Maine begins. Matinicus is over forty miles from where the Penobscot River first enters Penobscot Bay.

There is no question that Penobscot Bay is a very desirable destination with its beautiful coastline, hundreds of islands and attractive towns and villages. Thousands of summer visitors think of Penobscot Bay when they think of Maine, a state where you can have a remembered vacation. Would summer visitors include a minor league baseball game in their plans as they visit the area? Is there a sufficient population of residents in the bay area to follow and support a low minor league team with players that have no baseball reputations beyond the local areas where they grew up and went to school? This story will be about the improbable accomplishment of two individuals who believed that professional baseball did fit into the Penobscot Bay picture.

Three

The Future Team Owner

Ron Harvey’s life and career would be considered a complete success in the eyes of Maine residents. He grew up in Searsport, Maine and attended Searsport High School. Ron went to college in Bangor, Maine and returned to Searsport to make a good living as a real estate agent and investor. At the age of sixty eight in 2016, Ron is a true native of the Penobscot Bay area. He is a short five feet seven inches tall. He keeps himself in good shape. Ron has a rowboat on the shore of Searsport harbor in front of his house. His favorite exercise route is rowing along the shore from Searsport harbor the entire distance to a campground, a good distance from the harbor. Ron does find time to sit down when he takes long rides in his motor boat to the harbors of Belfast and Castine. He has always managed to find a seat on a wooden bench at a high school or college baseball game.

Ron and his wife Lynne just celebrated their forty second wedding anniversary. They have two children, a thirty-three-year-old daughter, Melissa, and John, a thirty-six-year-old son. The family home is on the shore of Searsport harbor next to the home where Ron’s parents lived until they died in 1996 and 2003. Ron’s parents owned three additional homes along the shore that they were able to rent to summer vacationers. The five Harvey-owned homes were located on twelve acres along the shore. The Searsport residents nicknamed this part of the shore Harvey Beach. Ron is an entrepreneur in the real estate business. The office of Ron Harvey Real Estate is located in town on Route ONE, the well-traveled highway that runs right through town. Lynne owns and operates a small gift shop that is also located in the town next to the store of the Penobscot Marine Museum. Ron and Lynne take great pride in owning a business in town. Visitors to the real estate office and the gift shop often come in just to eat the delicious selection of donuts that Ron and Lynne purchase from a bakery in town.

Selling real estate came easily to Ron. He still gets goosebumps when he helps a young couple purchase their first home. Ron spends hours studying the sheets that list recent home sales and homes that are listed for sale. He always takes a great interest in his customers. He knew that most of them were very concerned about the cost of a home because their personal expense budgets were very tight. Ron visited local banks to get a better idea of what mortgage loan options were available to a buyer with a modest income and a tight budget. He assisted his clients by helping them prepare a personal budget. He helped them focus on the type of mortgage that would provide enough money to purchase the house without getting the buyer too deep in debt.

Ron loves working with his prospective home buyers. His easy-going personality makes them feel very comfortable and confident about buying a home. Ron began to take a serious interest in helping families with modest incomes. He became very concerned that many of the families in the area faced limited job opportunities. He met frequently with local politicians to stress the importance of an effort to attract new businesses to the Penobscot Bay area.

Ron let Lynne run her own show in her gift shop business. The busier months were in the summer. The gift shop was closed in the winter months and it was only open on weekends in the spring and fall. Lynne did not like working with the numbers. Ron helped her with the recording of sales and expenses in financial software that became easier to use in recent years. Ron and Lynne were active members of the First Congregational Church in Searsport. Lynne contributed inventory from her store to church sales that were important church fund raisers. Ron called on young families that he knew to hopefully get them interested in joining the church. He also spent volunteer hours at the local food bank that was available to needy families in Searsport, Stockton Springs and Belfast. Ron and Lynne looked forward to any event around town that would bring the residents together. Highlights of the year were the Fourth of July parade and fireworks, the Fling Into Fall weekend in October and December holiday celebrations.

Daughter Melissa and son John brought pride and happiness to Ron and Lynne. Ron was not a strict father. He did not have to be. Melissa and John saw how their mother and father worked hard at their businesses, but they still found plenty of time to help others. Melissa went on several church-sponsored mission trips to areas that had to battle poverty and hunger. She attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland and then she began her career