Marty Lyons Tournament Little League Tourney Builds Community One Pitch At a Time

Trenton Acadians Headed to World Series

Aug 07, 2023

BAR HARBOR—The announcers’ voices echo along the southern side of downtown, echo from the ball field for two days, beginning on Saturday just after 8 a.m. Cars fill the ball field parking lot and it’s not tourists taking up the spaces this weekend. It’s locals and people from all around the county and even from Caribou. Players get out of cars along School Street, lacing up their cleats, getting ready.

The sound of a bat’s swing knocking a ball out of the park sends a zing and it’s followed—always—by cheers.

“There you go! There you go, baby!” one mom cheers.

These kids, their parents, the coaches, the 65 or so volunteers are standard bearers of American tradition and local tradition. Sometime around 6 p.m., they’ll leave the ball field the cook shack cleaned up and shut down, the brackets filled out, and kids will relive the biggest memories of the weekend—moments of triples and steals, home plate honors—while driving off MDI and back to where they live. It is a poignant but lovely homage to community and neighborhoods, to people coming together for a purpose: to cheer on their kids, to cheer on sportsmanship, and to cheer on the kindness and countless volunteer hours that make it happen.

“The 24th annual Marty Lyons Classic was a huge success this year!” said Acadian Youth Sports President Tony McKim. “To still have the tournament’s namesake throwing out the first pitch is a testament to how much the tournament means to the community as a whole. Fourteen teams, their parents, and loved ones descend on the Bar Harbor community for the weekend providing business to many local merchants. It is a nice economic engine for the community while the families enjoy the beauty of MDI during their downtime.”

Lyons was the executive director for the Harbor House for years and the founder of Little League on MDI. McKim took over that Little League duty about thirty years ago, but Lyons, he said, was a dedicated servant to children all over MDI.

The 24^th annual Marty Lyons Classic is about ball; it’s about winning, but it’s about something more than that, too. It’s about community, which is fitting because it’s named in honor of Marty Lyons, the co-founder of Acadian Youth Sports (AYS).

“Hustle out! Hustle out! Look alive! Move,” one coach yells to an away team. “This is supposed to be fun.”

“They’re used to winning,” a mom says to another one. She’s in a lawn chair, stationed along the first base line at one of the three fields in play. Her fingers idly rake through her toddler’s hair, combing out imaginary snarls.

“You can’t always win,” the other mom answers.

“Isn’t that the truth?”

That’s one of the things players are meant to take away: you can’t always win; you can’t give up. Instead, you pat your teammates’ back when they strike out at bat; you let them know it’s okay if they give up a walk-on with bases loaded; and you cheer like a banshee when something wonderful happens.

Baseball is about winners and losers, obviously, but it’s also about support, the opportunity to have another chance at bat or to catch that random flyball. It’s about looking after each other, too.

So, it’s about community and care. And that care is apparent every time a foul pops up and over the fence, heading toward Park Street and the playground or a puddle by the Bar Harbor Athletic Fields’ entrance or someone’s truck or face or shoulder.

“Heads up! Heads up!” It’s a chorus of care every time that ball flies outside of the field.

Thud.

“Oh, got two cars that time.”

Ben Paulsen, Tony Ricardo, and Chad Terry coach the Acadians major league boys. Jerry Burns, Pat Ford, and Eben Salvatore coach the Acadian minor league boys.

The event is organized by a group of people including Executive Director Nikki Chan, Vice President Andrew Shea, Leslyn Shea, Trenton Delegate Kyle McKim, Treasurer Jon Nicholson, and Tony McKim, who has been organizing it for 24 years. The Acadian Majors went out to Caribou after defeating Hampden and Hermon. The Acadian Minors lost to Brewer.

Tony McKim said, “The event, although now exhausting to me at 56, lol, is wonderful to watch.”

With varying flair and tons of enthusiastic gusto and that same togetherness, volunteers announce the players like they are super stars and for the afternoon? They are. The volunteer announcers never lose their joy despite the long hours. For a moment, at bat, the world around them focuses on them and these young athletes are Luis Arraez or Babe Ruth, Freddie Freeman or Masataka Yoshida, Ted Williams or Carl Yastremski or David Ortiz.

Angela Reed Paulsen said, “As someone who was there this weekend watching my kid play baseball, I will say that this volunteer announcer’s work made the players feel special and the tournament feel important. I was thrilled that my son got to experience it.”

It’s a massive, community affair.

“(We watch) our small team of community members rally together. Sometimes the Acadians win and sometimes we don’t. But we are always there to the bitter end, together,” McKim said.

Volunteers also count pitches, man the shack, and maintain the field. Steve Lambert stands against a pole, watching a game, just checking the speakers’ sound. Other local people who don’t have kids playing come and go, filtering in to watch a few innings, remembering all the games they’d played on the field in the past.

“I live by the YMCA and I like the sound of kids and families having a good time. Nice to see kids outside playing and not sitting in front of tablets and phones,” Eric Eversole said.

The tournament has sometimes been called organized chaos, but there’s another layer underneath that. It’s kindness. It’s the togetherness McKim mentions. It’s making random connections and moments that don’t have anything to do with the actual game.

“I kind of like this book,” a young boy in the bleachers tells everyone around him. “I got it at the library. I read one chapter. I also got two balls.”

“Two?”

“Two!” he proudly explains and then asks if anyone has any Swedish Fish, but the Caribou players all near only have Slim Jims. They offer him one.

“What’s a Slim Jim?”

He’s about to find out. He put his book down on the metal bleachers, half shaded by the trees behind the snack house, basking in the summer sun, cheers of the game all around him and bit in.

The verdict?

“Hm,” he says, nose scrunching as he handed it back.

The tournament in Lyons’ honor is about baseball, but it’s also about those little moments. The hms. The friendships. The cheers. The pats on the back. It’s about trying something new and it’s about community.

Photo of names courtesy of Jeremy Dougherty

As we left the field for our final time this season, I couldn’t help but pause and think about how special these summers are. No two summers are ever the same, the combination of players on each team and parents in the stands makes each season uniquely different. The growth of the kids not only on the athletics’ side, but on their ability to compose themselves under pressure, to support one another, and to persevere when it really gets tough. The baseball is just extra; it’s the fun part of it all. But it’s not what is really happening each summer,” said Jeremy Dougherty also known as Coach Jeremy on the field and sometimes off.

What’s happening, he said, is the fun. And also the tradition.

“Next year there will new young kids, and returning older kids, all with new nicknames to call out and teammates to cheer for,” Dougherty said.

And everyone will be doing it, just like McKim says, together.

TRENTON ACADIANS WIN NORTHEASTS

Baseball and softball have been in the news a lot lately. Last week the Trenton Acadians won the state senior American Legion baseball championship, its first state Legion title. Isaac MacDonnell, Joey Wellman-Clouse, Colin Sullivan, and AJ Lozano (all from MDI High School) played for the Acadians. Undefeated until Capital Area won in the postseason, the junior Legion team from Trenton dominated its regular season.

And this Sunday afternoon at the Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts?

The Trenton Acadians became the third Maine team to ever win the Northeast Regional Senior American Legion Tournament.

That means that they’ll be playing in the American Legion World series. The team was led by the fastball of pitcher Hunter Curtis of Husson University who served up a three-hitter. David Baugh, Dawson Curtis, Joey Clouse, and Brett Bragdon all batted in hits in the 6-1 win over Nashua, New Hampshire.

Team members come from Mount Desert Island High School, Ellsworth, and George Stevens Academy. The Senior Legion Tournament in North Carolina begins Thursday.

American Legion baseball brings together 13-19 year olds all across the United States and Canada. It began in 1925.