It's The Maine Attraction

"We're baseball players," said Dugas. "I'm a second baseman and he's the centerfielder."

"O.K., let me goose his position," said Glovsky, pointing to Gallagher. "Leftfielder, right?"

Even beyond Dave Glovsky, Old Orchard Beach has history. Charles Lindbergh landed The Spirit of St. Louis on the beach in July of 1927, two months after his transatlantic crossing. The Grand Beach area, north of town, lured John F. Kennedy's maternal grandfather and Pierre Trudeau's father. The Pier, which has been ravaged by both fire and sea over the years, used to feature the biggest bands of the Swing Era and now offers all sorts of fattening fare.

But baseball has very little history in Old Orchard Beach, or in Maine, for that matter. The last professional team in the state was the Portland Pilots, a Class B New England League club that died in the '50s. It seems more than a little ironic that the original Cleveland Native American, Louis (Chief) Sockalexis, who in 1897 batted .338 while playing rightfield for the Spiders, then the Cleveland team in the National League, came from Old Town, Maine.

THE TASK

So the first spadeful of dirt at the groundbreaking represented a high point in Maine baseball history. Building a ball park in the middle of the woods is no easy task, and, in fact, one worker was killed when a tree fell on him. In July, Kobritz announced the names of the other investors, and started a name-that-team contest. In came such suggestions as the Mooses, the Meese, the Lobsters, the Sails, the Eagles, the Black Flies, the Deer, the Vacationers and the Maine Squeezes. Of the more than 10,000 entries, 15 suggested the Guides, and the winner of the drawing was, naturally, a professor of history at Bowdoin College, H.R. (Home Run?) Coursen. A friend of Kobritz's came up with the snappy logo of the back of a lefthanded batter (going to the opposite field) superimposed on a compass.

All through the summer and autumn, trees were cleared, stumps were removed, the field was graded and the turf was laid. Work proceeded in what was fortunately a mild winter. Still, it was a race to complete construction by April 17, Opening Day. Kobritz had already decided on a name for the ball park, The Ballpark. "I couldn't bear to go to work every day at Jordan Kobritz Stadium," he says. "Too much pressure."

At 3 a.m. on April 16 the team's bus arrived in Old Orchard Beach from a road trip. At a banquet that night, Kobritz surprised his wife by announcing that she would throw out the first ball.

Opening Day was rained out, which was just as well because the backstop wasn't up yet. On April 18 Nicci Kobritz practiced for an hour in the parking lot, throwing the ball under the tutelage of two Little Leaguers. When she came in, Jordan asked her, "How did it go?"

"I think I got it," said Nicci. "My coaches told me just to put my three fingers across the threads and everything would be O.K."