BANGOR — Even though a few raindrops fell on Monday, it was a beautiful, sunny day in the minds of Dennis Lewin, Mike Brooker and Senior League World Series staffers as they released the tourney schedule at Mansfield Stadium.
Lewin, the chairman of the board of directors for Little League baseball and softball, who splits his time between Florida and East Orland, said the week-long tournament is a home run in the Queen City for a variety of reasons.
“First of all, you’ve got the spirit of volunteers. Mike Brooker, Dave Mansfield and Bob Stevenson, people like that, are doing an amazing job running this program year after year,” Lewin said.
Brooker is the tourney director, Stevenson is the District 3 administrator and Mansfield is the president of the Mansfield Stadium board.
The 2010 edition of the SLWS, the ninth year the event has been held in Bangor, kicks off with the opening ceremonies on Saturday, Aug. 14 while games begin the next day.
The championship game, which will be televised on ESPNU-TV, is Saturday, Aug. 21 at noon, earlier than past years’ start of 3 p.m.
The time change was made by Little League and Brooker likes it because it will be the first game of the day on ESPNU and doesn’t run the risk of being joined in progress on the network because the previous game went longer than anticipated.
Lewin praised Brooker and his World Series staff at Mansfield and the Bangor Little Leagues for continuously raising the funds to keep the tournament in Bangor.
“Let’s not forget it costs money to put these events on and somehow they’ve got to raise money to offset those costs,” he said. “It’s our fondest dream to stay here forever.”
“To the people that have been supporting us since Day One, we can’t say enough and people that want to get on board now, we’d appreciate their help so much,” Brooker said.
The budget for the World Series is approximately $175,000, he said.
Brooker added that fundraising activities are going smoothly this summer, and now it’s just a matter of getting the teams here in a few weeks.
“We have the actual running of the tournament pretty down-pat, it’s just a matter of getting the money in year in and year out,” Brooker said.
Even though it is tough to put on an event of this caliber from a financial standpoint, that’s where sponsors such as Sargent Tyler and West, the Fitch company, KevLan, Fairmount Market and the Corner Store, who have sponsored the tourney since it arrived here, come into play, according to Brooker.
Mansfield Stadium has also been a big asset.
“The facility here at Mansfield Stadium is as good a facility as anywhere in the country,” Lewin said. “The spirit of volunteerism is as good as it is anywhere in the country. From all those perspectives, we hope as much as anybody it’ll be here forever.”
That could be a possibility, as the tournament generates revenue for local businesses, particularly hotels and restaurants.
“We knew that when Little League gave it to us that it would stay here as long as we didn’t fall flat on our faces,” Brooker said. “I said when we first got it that I’d certainly like to see it stay here for 15-20 years.”
Local hotel operators have told Brooker that the only week that exceeds the SLWS from a financial standpoint is the high school basketball tournament in February.
“Where else do our local kids have an opportunity to compete against kids from all over the world and all over the U.S.,?” Brooker said. “We’re providing great opportunities here.”
The District 3 Senior League tournament kicked off Monday at Mansfield, and the champion of that bracket will represent Maine District 3 Little League in the SLWS and take on the Canadian champs in the series opener Aug. 15 at noon.
The tourney also brings many kids to Maine for the first time, and the memories can be everlasting.
“I remember one year a kid ordered a hot dog at the concession stand, and they gave him two dogs, and we have our Maine hot dogs, he looked at it and said, no, no, no, I wanted them cooked,” Brooker said.
Tickets for the week-long series are on sale at all Leadbetter’s Super Shops, or at Mansfield Stadium when district tournament games are being played.
Tournament passes are $35 for adults, $25 for students while one-day passes are $10..
The tourney drew approximately 33,500 fans last year, Brooker said, close to the record of 35,000 in 2006. Attendance figures from other years are: 2002 (30,000), 2003 (25,000), 2004 (20,000), 2005 (28,000), 2007 (28,000), and 2008 (32,000).
Two teams have qualified thus far for the 2010 series as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands captured the Asia Pacific title while the Lazio, Italy, all-stars won the EMEA (Europe-Middle East-Africa) title.
