VINALHAVEN, Maine — It’s just after 5 a.m. when the scramble begins in households around the island.
Getting dressed and having breakfast is just the beginning, along with gathering all the gear needed for a day on the mainland — and everything must be ready in time to be at the ferry terminal by 6:30 a.m.
This isn’t a school day but a typical Saturday morning for much of the spring, when youngsters on the Vinalhaven softball and baseball teams and their parents arise even earlier in the morning to compete in the Oceanside Little League some 15 ocean miles away in Rockland.
“It can get a little crazy,” said Sarah Forner, whose 10-year-old twin daughters, Maggie and Eleanor, play softball for the Islanders. “But the kids are excited to go.”
Once the ferry departs the Vinalhaven terminal at 7 a.m. for the 75-minute trek to the mainland, the baseball players typically spend their time playing with their gadgets — until the ferry reaches the Rockland breakwater and it’s time to focus on baseball, according to longtime coach Steve Ames.
“The Game Boys or other electronics are like the pacifiers. They keep them from expending too much energy on the boat,” Ames said. “And on the way back home, because we take the big ferry, there’s plenty of room, and they’ll all be up top.”
The softball players, meanwhile, share some of assistant coach Angie Miller’s healthy snacks and enjoy an exercise in team unity.
“They start the hair salon, and everyone gets their hair braided the same,” said Kris Osgood, whose daughter Dreyenn pitches for Vinalhaven’s softball team.
“Riding a boat can be a hassle for islanders, but the time our team gets to spend together — an hour and a half to get to the mainland and a hour and a half going back every week — it’s an incredible bonding time for them,” she said.
When the teams arrive in Rockland, they have 45 minutes to get to the field for the start of weekly doubleheaders — rare in Little League but a concession to the logistics involving the ferry schedule, which doesn’t provide service that would allow Vinalhaven to play weekday games.
Depending on when the second games of the doubleheaders conclude, the teams can catch either the 2:45 or 4:30 p.m. ferry back home.
“It’s a long day, and when we’re done here we don’t just get to go home; we have to wait for the ferry. And sometimes, if you’ve got your car in line, you may not make that first trip, and then you have to wait for the next trip,” Vinalhaven Little League softball coach Michelle Stanley said. “It’s worth the sacrifice, but it makes for a long day, and the kids are tired by the end of it.”
The Vinalhaven teams travel to the mainland for five of their six regular-season doubleheaders each year, but for the last four seasons, each team has been able to sleep in one Saturday and host a doubleheader at the Vinalhaven School.
“We really want to give the kids on the mainland an idea of the level of commitment the Vinalhaven kids are making to do this,” said Tom Peaco, vice president of the Oceanside Little League that serves Rockland, Thomaston, Owls Head, South Thomaston, St. George and Cushing along with Vinalhaven.
“For a lot of kids from the mainland who go there to play, it’s their first time, so that’s a good aspect, too, just to have the chance to see a little of what island life is like and just to get on the water. Even kids who live in Rockland, you’d think everybody would be on the water, but many have not.”
Rare opportunity
The Vinalhaven Islanders softball team and Ravens baseball club are believed to be among a very few Little League teams nationally that play in a mainland league they can reach only by boat.
“We do have a few Little League programs that include islands in their boundaries,” Brian McClintock, Little League’s senior director of communications, said. “There are also a few scattered down the East Coast, Gulf Coast and West Coast that incorporate islands.”
That list includes at least two other Maine communities, Deer Isle-Stonington in the Blue Hill-based Coastal Little League and Swans Island in the Bar Harbor-based Acadian Little League, though Deer Isle-Stonington is accessible to the mainland by bridge.
Swans Island hasn’t fielded an officially chartered Little League team, though it is part of the Acadian Little League’s designated territory. Individual players from the island have participated in the league and qualified for all-star teams, and a team of 9- and 10-year-olds has boated to the mainland to scrimmage Acadian Little League opponents as recently as last year, according to league President Tony McKim.
While Little League baseball and softball has separate Major (ages 11-12) and Minor (ages 9-10) divisions, Vinalhaven fields single baseball and softball teams with players ages 9 through 12 out of necessity — enrollment for grades K-12 on the island is just 173, according to school secretary Amanda Wentworth, whose son Sam plays third base for the Ravens and whose great-grandfather, Capt. Charles Philbrook, is the namesake for one of two ferries that service the island.
Ames and Dewey Sanborn started the island’s Little League baseball team in 1999.
“The first year was kind of rough,” Ames said. “We had a bunch of 12-year-olds who played together in ’98, but we never got to play a game because we weren’t in the league, and they all left so we had a bunch of young ballplayers that first year.
“We took it on the cuff for a while, but after about three years — and the coaches were learning, too — we started to pick it up, and the last five or six years we’ve been pretty solid,” he said.
Stanley and Holly Arey originated the first softball program for girls on the island in 2008.
“That very first year we thought we’d try it,” Stanley said. “We could take 12 girls, but 21 showed up, so we knew the interest was there. Thankfully we haven’t had difficulty getting enough kids, but if we’re short, we can reach out to [neighboring island community] North Haven.
“Getting them interested at a younger age is great,” she added.
Benefits beyond the diamond
The staying power of the Vinalhaven Little League program has yielded benefits for many of the island’s youngsters beyond just the competitive experience.
Parents describe the island as a close-knit community conducive to the safe raising of children, but the more frequent trips to the mainland during baseball and softball season provide additional chances for the players to socialize with their peers from other teams.
“As far as opportunities on the island, our kids have freedom to do anything, just be home by dinner, and in the world you really can’t do that anymore. It’s a real community, everybody watches out for everyone,” said Forner, who with her husband, Bill, have lived for five years on the island, where they’re raising six children ages 18 and younger.
“As far as disadvantages, there’s not a lot of experiences in the world. It’s pretty sheltered, so it’s a little scary sending them off to college. It’s a little like throwing them to the wolves,” she said.
Many island families visit the mainland just a couple of times each month outside the Little League season, in part because of the cost to take the ferry. A round trip from Vinalhaven to Rockland for a standard vehicle and its driver is $49.50, with additional tickets for children ages 5 to 11 at $8.50 each and $17.50 apiece for anyone 12 and older.
“But through Little League, their social network expands immensely,” Forner said. “We’ll go places and people will come up and say, ‘I know you, I played softball with you,’ so socially it’s great for them to spend time with the teams and get to know them.”
Of course, not every trip to the mainland is anticipated with such enthusiasm as those Saturday during Little League season.
“It depends what I’m doing,” softball pitcher Dreyenn said. “I don’t like going to the orthodontist.”
Feeder program
The Vinalhaven Little League program also has helped stabilize teams at the island’s high school, which has an enrollment of about 65 in grades nine through 12.
“I was very encouraged to see the turnout for the [Vinalhaven-North Haven] high school team, because that was the whole idea when Dewey and I started this. We started this because we wanted to see a high school team,” Ames said.
“The high school team was sporadic before Little League began, but now it’s pretty solid every year, and almost all the kids on the [high school] team this year have played Little League,” he said.
The island’s softball program similarly has bolstered the high school roster as players in both sports transition from Little League to high school teams, despite often having to sit out one year after they’ve aged out of Little League but before they reach eighth grade, when they can start playing varsity sports because of Vinalhaven’s low high school enrollment.
“You’re going from Little League, where you might be really good, and then you have to start from the bottom again in high school,” Vinalhaven High School softball coach Doug Littlefield said. “It’s a big jump, but some of these girls have made the transition really well.”
The Little League feeder system is paying off for the island’s high school baseball and softball teams, which are bound for postseason play despite doubleheader-filled schedules similar to those of Vinalhaven’s Little League teams, with just one home twin bill apiece.
The high school softball team is 10-4 and ranked second in Class D South, and the baseball team is 7-7 and ranked seventh.
“It helps out tremendously,” Littlefield said of the Little League program, “because it gives the kids three or four years of experience before they get to high school.”
Championship hopes
After another spring mostly on the road or at sea, Vinalhaven Little League teams will open the Oceanside playoffs with home games Saturday.
The Islanders’ softball squad, 12-0 and ranked first among six teams in the league, will play its postseason opener at 11:30 a.m. That comes just after the 9-3 Ravens, seeded second among eight teams, plays at 9 a.m.
That Vinalhaven is in the mix for postseason success is not a surprise.
“They’re always very competitive teams,” Peaco said. “They’re serious about it and have some very dedicated volunteers who make it happen and really do a good job of keeping it going. It’s great to have them be part of this.”
The parents and players agree.
“I think it’s a great program,” Bill Forner said. “It adds a new level of stress for the parents, just trying to get the kids situated and to games and to practices — all that fun stuff. But it does a lot for the kids.”
