Send questions/comments to the editors.
Complete coverage: Hadlock Field hosts the 2015 Eastern League All-Star Game
You are able to gift 5 more articles this month.
Anyone can access the link you share with no account required. Learn more.
With a Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month.
It looks like you do not have any active subscriptions. To get one, go to the subscriptions page.
With a Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month.
Loading....
-
Eastern Division wins All-Star Game in Home Run Derby Shootout
Marco Hernandez of the Sea Dogs is the game's MVP.Members of the Eastern Division all-star team celebrate as they watch Brian Pointer's home run sail out of Hadlock Field, giving them the victory Wednesday in a game that was decided by a home run derby tie-breaker.Baseball traditionalists might be cringing, but for the sold-out Hadlock Field crowd of 7,368, it was one dramatic way to end a ballgame.
After nine innings and a 4-4 score in the Eastern League All-Star Game Wednesday night, the league used a “Home Run Shootout” to decide the winner.
And the Eastern Division won on Brian Pointer’s home run on the 22nd shootout swing, causing Hadlock to erupt and his teammates to mob him.
“That was crazy,” said Pointer, an outfielder/designated hitter for the Reading Fightin Phils. “To have it end like that … Made it exciting and pretty suspenseful.”
In the actual game, Sea Dogs shortstop Marco Hernandez hit the only regulation home run, a two-run shot in the second inning. Hernandez finished 2 for 2 with two runs and two RBI. He was named the game’s MVP, the first Sea Dogs player so honored since Todd Dunwoody in 1996.
“It was awesome,” said Hernandez before getting a celebratory shaving cream pie in the face from pitcher William Cuevas, his Sea Dogs teammate.
Cuevas started the game with a 1-2-3 first inning. Two other Portland pitchers appeared with Madison Younginer recording a scoreless sixth, and Robby Scott getting the Eastern Division out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, before pitching a 1-2-3 eighth.
Two other Sea Dogs played: third baseman Jantzen Witte was 0 for 2 and second baseman Carlos Asuaje 0 for 1.
Hernandez singled and scored in the first inning. In the second inning, Hernandez crushed a fastball to right field, capping a three-run inning for a 4-0 lead. Hernandez leads the league with a .326 average.
“I don’t know how long he’ll be with us, as well as he’s been playing,” said Sea Dogs (and Eastern Division) Manager Billy McMillon. “But we’re going to cherish every moment he’s with us.”
The Western Division got a run back in the second and scored three off New Britain pitcher Austin House in the seventh. He exited the game with two outs in the inning, bases loaded and the score 4-4. The left-handed Scott was summoned to face lefty Ricky Oropesa. Scott got him to ground out.
“If you have to write the script, as a reliever that’s the opportunity you want,” Scott said.”
When nine innings were over, in a format decided before the game, each team picked three batters to participate in the shootout. The batters – all left-handers, in deference to the left-field wall – got one swing in the first round.
After that, the format was sudden death, again with each batter getting one swing to homer.
“The energy – everybody was into it,” McMillon said. “It worked better than I thought it would.”
In the first sudden-death round, Reading’s Brock Stassi crushed a ball, but it just missed going over.
“I thought it was gone. I even threw my bat in the air,” Stassi said. “But it was fun. One swing was kind of tough, but it added to the excitement.”
In the third sudden-death round, Oropesa blasted a ball down the line. But as the Western team began celebrating, the umpire called it foul.
“It was fair,” said Richmond Flying Squirrels (and Western) hitting coach Ken Joyce. “It hooked right around the foul pole.”
Then, in the fourth sudden-death round – the 11th swing by an Eastern batter – Pointer hit a blast to the third row of the right-field pavilion.
Pointer likes Hadlock. Earlier this season, he hit three home runs in one game. And he got another Wednesday.
“I thought I got it pretty good,” Pointer said. “I kept my hands in the air, watching it.”
The home run ended a long day. Fans began lining up hours before the gates opened at 3 p.m. And when those gates opened, fans flooded in for autographs, batting practice and a scheduled Home Run Derby.
Four hours after the gates opened, the All-Stars were introduced. And with an added Sea Dogs’ touch, the starting All-Stars entered the field through the stands, greeting fans on their way to the field – a move borrowed from the Sea Dogs’ annual Field of Dreams game.
Then came the game.
Nine innings later, the home run hitters lined up for a shootout.
“That was something else,” Pointer said.
-
Notebook: Altoona’s Dan Gamache wins Eastern League Home Run Derby
The infielder hit four homers to hold off Richmond's Ricky Oropesa.PORTLAND, ME - JULY 15: Dan Gamache of the Altoona Curve, center, takes off his batting gloves after winning the home run derby before the Eastern League All Star game at Hadlock Field Wednesday, July 15, 2015. (Photo by Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer)Dan Gamache has never hit more than six home runs in any of his five minor-league baseball seasons.
But the Altoona Curve infielder sneaked up on the field and then surpassed them all Wednesday to win the Home Run Derby ahead of the Eastern League All-Star Game at Hadlock Field.
Gamache pounded four home runs in nine swings in the final round to outpace Ricky Oropesa of the Richmond Flying Squirrels, who hit two.
“I feel like it’s easier in batting practice to hit home runs because you’re not really trying and no one’s really watching you,” Gamache said after earning the $1,000 reward. “It’s nice not being one of the guys that’s leading the league in home runs because there’s probably pressure then.”
Gamache entered the All-Star break with five home runs. The Rhode Island native won the derby in front of his family and the hitting coach he’s had since he was 8.
The Portland Sea Dogs’ representative was Jantzen Witte, who leads the Eastern League with 25 doubles, but has only four home runs. Being a right-handed line-drive hitter was a decided disadvantage. Three of the four semifinalists bat left-handed, and so didn’t have to contend with the Maine Monster in left field or the wind blowing in from that direction.
Witte failed to homer in 10 swings, although his final attempt hit high off the wall.
“I was just trying to get loose. We’ve been kind of rushed around here today, signing autographs,” said Witte, who had never participated in a home run contest before and said it was a blast to do so. “After that round, I was thinking maybe I should have tried to go (opposite field). I don’t know, that’s a pretty big wall there in left.
“I don’t hit a ton of home runs, but I really thought that that last one had a chance.”
Portland High School graduate Ryan Baker, who played six minor-league seasons in the New York Yankees’ system before retiring in 2013, was the catcher for the contest. Members of the current Portland and Deering high school baseball teams got to track down the fly balls that ended up short of the outfield seats.
The all-star players and coaches enjoyed an old-fashioned Maine lobster bake Tuesday night at Spring Point in South Portland, complete with fog.
The only person missing was Richmond hitting coach Ken Joyce, a Portland native who is a graduate of both Deering High and the University of Southern Maine. He was in Windham, watching another all-star.
Jill Joyce, a rising freshman at McAuley, stroked a two-run single that broke a scoreless tie and led the Portland All-Stars to a 7-3 victory over Windham in the Juniors Softball state championship.
Had Portland lost, a winner-take-all game would have coincided with Wednesday’s Eastern League All-Star Game.
“She pointed at me as if to say, ‘I’m coming to your game tomorrow night,” Joyce said. “There was no way she was playing (Wednesday).”
Portland will represent Maine in a New England Regional 14-and-under tournament that starts July 24 in West Haven, Connecticut.
Ken Joyce, who pitched for the West in Wednesday night’s Home Run Derby, watched from a hill beyond center field with two sisters and his son, Tommy.
Janet Joyce, Ken’s wife, is the Portland coach. Already Jill has started a GoFundMe page to help defray expenses for the trip to regionals.
Four groups of a dozen All-Stars each spent about an hour Wednesday morning at four venues. One group visited the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital. Another traveled to the Maine Veterans Home in Scarborough. The other two dropped in on the Boys and Girls Club of Portland on Cumberland Avenue and the Riverton School, where a summer recreation program was underway.
Mychal Givens, a Bowie pitcher who was called up for one game last month (and pitched his only inning at Fenway Park), brought a GoPro camera to record the festivities. Teammate Terry Doyle wore it during batting practice and while interacting with fans along the left-field line. Givens donned it for the Home Run Derby.
BLAKE SWIHART not only put in an impressive performance with his celebrity appearance at the All-Star Game, he will stay with the Sea Dogs on a rehab assignment.
Swihart, 23, has been on the major league disabled list with a strained foot. He began a rehab assignment with Pawtucket for two games before the All-Star break. On Thursday, he will continue his rehab stint with the Sea Dogs, who begin a four-game series in New Hampshire.
In Pawtucket, Swihart served as the DH one game and caught seven innings in the other.
On Wednesday, Swihart threw out the ceremonial first pitch. He had already accepted an invitation to the All-Star Game before learning of the rehab assignment.
When Swihart threw his first pitch, Sea Dogs pitcher Robby Scott served as the catcher. In last year’s Eastern League All-Star Game in Altoona, Scott pitched to Swihart in the game. Swihart was eventually promoted to Pawtucket near the end of last year. This season, he was called up to Boston May 2.
After Swihart threw out the first pitch, he walked throughout the stands at Hadlock Field for over 90 minutes, greeting fans.
BRANDON NIMMO does not come from one of those U.S. baseball hotbeds in Texas, California or Florida, Nimmo, a Binghamton outfielder and the New York Mets’ No. 3 prospect, hails from Wyoming, a state which does not have high school baseball.
“Not a lot of baseball players come from Wyoming,” said Nimmo, 22, the Mets’ first-round draft pick in 2011. “I played (American) Legion ball. We start in the middle of April and go until August.”
Nimmo also played in some out-of-state prospect tournaments which got him more exposure.
FAN BUSES are normal at a Sea Dogs game, but two came from Reading, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey, bringing fans of the Reading Fightin Phils and the Trenton Thunder.
“It was an eight-hour ride but it was well worth it,” said Jeff Faas, 54, of Topton, Pennsylvania. Faas said the Fightin Phils offer a bus trip once a season and decided on the All-Star Game.
The Reading fans arrived Monday, took a tour of Hadlock and then did their tourist thing.
“It’s gone really well,” said Faas, wearing his Phils’ jersey, along with his new Maine cap, complete with a lobster on it.
THE NATIONAL anthem was sung by the Portland Manager Billy McMillon’s daughter, Kennedy McMillon, 14.
THE WEATHER turned out much better than early forecasts of rain. The players were introduced under sunny skies.
Only one Eastern League All-Star Game has been canceled, and that was in 2007 when fog rolled into Dodd Stadium in Norwich, Connecticut and stopped the game in the third inning. The Norwich franchise has since moved to Richmond, Virginia (Norwich now has a short-season New York-Penn League team).
– Staff writers Kevin Thomas and Glenn Jordan contributed to this report.
-
Thousands of autograph seekers have field day at Hadlock
All-Stars sign posters, baseballs, even a replica home plate, for adoring fans.Kyle Hoffman, 8 holds a binder full of baseball cards to be signed by players before Wednesday night's game at Hadlock Field. Whitney Hayward/Staff PhotographerIn the calm before the rush, Josh Bell picked a black Sharpie off a white tablecloth draped over a folding table in the relatively empty left-field concourse at Hadlock Field.
Bell, a first baseman for the Double-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates located in Altoona, Pennsylvania, was one of the most sought-after signers at autograph sessions Wednesday afternoon before the Eastern League All-Star Game.
“It’s cool,” said Bell, whose signing bonus of $5 million in 2011 set a record for a second-round draft pick.
“It’s especially cool when there are kids involved. You kind of put yourself in their shoes, aspiring to be in our shoes one day.”
The game and the Home Run Derby were the feature events at Hadlock, but a few thousand folks showed up hours before the first pitch to interact with the All-Stars, to share a snippet of conversation and get a card, ball, photo or bat signed.
Two lines snaked through the concourse shortly after the main gate opened at 3 p.m., with Bell and seven other Western Division All-Stars seated beneath the left-field stands and the rest of his temporary teammates behind the first-base stands. On the field, the Eastern Division team took batting practice.
After 45 minutes, the teams switched positions.
The Jensen family of Tolland, Connecticut, emerged from the tent with dad Adam and his sons, Luke (12), Seth (10) and Garrett (“I’m almost 7), each wearing a Red Sox T-shirt and clutching a white Rawlings Official Major League Baseball covered with signatures.
“My first autograph was Ted Williams and it got me hooked,” said Adam as he placed his youngest son’s ball into a clear baggie so the ink wouldn’t smudge. “I was about 10 years old, right around Seth’s age, and I’m just glad they’re getting into it now. It’s a lot of fun.”
Jensen and his wife, Jennifer, planned their vacation to Old Orchard Beach around the All-Star Game. They said they didn’t know any of the players whose signatures they obtained, but that it was exciting nonetheless.
Moments later, 8-year-old Hayden Collins of Bangor came through the line, clutching a homemade wooden replica of home plate that players had signed. His dad had another plate, still shiny white and inkless, ready for the Eastern Division All-Stars.
Although there were plenty of kids seeking autographs, adults were plentiful as well. Seasoned collectors carried backpacks with binders and easy-to-access baseball cards.
Bill Kearns of Sabattus carried a large piece of cardboard on each side of which he had taped a white homemade poster with the Eastern League All-Star logo. He arrived at Hadlock early Wednesday morning, hoping to catch players as they arrived at the park.
Kearns said he started collecting autographs with his son, Jon, at the suggestion of a friend when Jon, now 20 and a cancer survivor, was 7.
“I don’t have any vices, so I do this,” he said. “And my wife is OK with it.”
Both posters, he said, will go under a glass frame. One will hang in his “baseball shed” behind his house. The other is for a friend.
Jay Gardner, 48, of Whitefield and his stepson, Corey Harris, 30, of Augusta share a history similar to that of Kearns. It was something to do together when Corey was young, and something they continue to enjoy.
“It’s very exciting,” said Harris, who got hooked on ‘graphing when, on a trip to spring training in Florida, Mariano Rivera signed for him. “When you’re going to get one of your favorite players, the anticipation builds up.
“It’s like thrill seekers when they go on a roller coaster. They get so excited and then they’re like, ‘What can I do bigger and better?’ ”
Back at the table in left field, Bell, the Pirates’ prospect, was reflective about what can sometimes be a tedious and certainly repetitive task. He has never asked anyone for an autograph, but remembers the feeling that day when, as a sophomore in high school, he high-fived Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki coming off a basketball court and vowed not to wash his hand for a week.
“It might end one day,” Bell said. “After your career is done, you might go through your entire day without anybody wanting your signature, so you might as well take advantage of the experience and the opportunity while it presents itself.”
-
Former Sox closer Lee Smith strolls down memory lane
Smith is serving as a pitching coach in the Eastern League All-Star Game at Hadlock Field.Lee Smith’s best baseball memory involves an All-Star game.
He was delighted to share the story Wednesday in Portland, where he was on hand for another All-Star game, this time as the pitching coach for the Western squad in the Eastern League game.
Smith, a hulking 6-foot-5 right-hander from Louisiana, is third all time on major league baseball’s saves list with 478 over an 18-year career.
But in the 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland, he pitched three innings to earn a victory, and even was forced to bat wearing a helmet from a different team.
“I struck out Mark McGwire in his home ballpark,” Smith said of the then-rookie slugger with the A’s. “It’s one of those things where you think you get recognition as being one of the quality closers.”
Smith, then a member of the Cubs, struck out three other players, the last NL pitcher to fan four in an All-Star game until the Dodgers’ Zack Greinke did so Tuesday.
Smith wasn’t aware of that distinction. But he laughed when he spoke about having to step in against Jay Howell in the 13th inning and bunt, while wearing a borrowed Montreal Expos helmet after Cubs teammates Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson had left the stadium. Smith recalled laying down a sacrifice, but he actually struck out. No matter. Tim Raines hit a two-run triple to give the National League, and Smith, the victory. The last pitcher left, Sid Fernandez of the Mets, picked up the save.
“Just to be one of the best of your league in baseball, as tough as it is, is a really great thing,” said Smith, a seven-time All-Star.
Smith, who now works for the San Francisco Giants, was at Hadlock with his 11-year-old son, Nicholas, a devoted Red Sox fan. His mother and uncles all went to Boston College, Smith explained. Dad introduced Nicholas to his idol, David Ortiz.
Smith played two-plus seasons for Boston, picking up 54 of his then-record saves total. The best part of playing for the Red Sox, he said, was getting to learn from Roger Clemens, who taught Smith how to throw a split-fingered fastball.
“He said to me, ‘Smitty, man, how do you keep that ball down like that?'” Smith recalled. “I said, ‘Dude, I came from (Wrigley Field) and this ballpark here might be smaller.’ So it makes you think as a pitcher, you just can’t get 2-0 and think I’m going to throw down the middle just to get there. I saw Roger Clemens throw the splitter 3-0, bases loaded. I said, ‘Man what are you doing?'”
Smith wanted to be a starting pitcher, but was converted to relief because of control problems. Something about coming out of the bullpen clicked, he said, even though he initially considered it a demotion.
He was elite enough in that role to make $21 million over his career. Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman have since surpassed his saves total, but Smith struck out 1,251 batters in 1,289 innings, with a 3.03 ERA in 1,022 games.
He has been passed over for the Hall of Fame on 13 occasions, getting as high as 50.6 percent of the vote total (75 percent is needed) in 2012. This year, he got only 30.2 percent.
He said he’s stopped worrying about that honor.
“My first couple of years it would bother me because I thought my chances were looking pretty good. But now it goes up and down; it depends on who’s on the ballot, and it’s really tough to figure out what they’re thinking,” Smith said. “I used to sit around the television and see what my chances are. After about that third year, I’m like, ‘OK, I’m going fishing.'”
-
Click here: Scenes from the Eastern League All-Star Game
Jantzen Witte of the Portland Sea Dogs reacts after hitting a fly ball that just missed being a home run during the Home Run Derby.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.