Borrowed, and worth borrowing
The league's front page carries Drew Bonifant's 2017 Central Maine feature in full, photographs credited to Michael G. Seamans, and it is the best account of adult baseball anywhere in this directory. It is where the ages come from, the professionals, the double plays turned by men with grey hair, and Ken Walsh's line about his ten-year-old son watching him play at fifty-six: "I never thought in a million years he would even see that opportunity."
Everything else the league announces goes to Facebook, which it says carries announcements, final scores, standings and stats.
A piece of writing that good deserves to sit beside the seasons it describes rather than under a champions list on a free web page. A High Cheese league page keeps the news with the games, and pushes it to the schedules the players already carry.
Pine Tree Baseball League in detail
- Eighteen Maine towns, wood bats, and players from eighteen to over sixty on the same field.
- Late May to early August, one game a week, plus a midseason round robin at Colby.
- Divisional standings are published for the season.
- Final scores for the season are published, with Facebook carrying them first.
- Eighteen clubs, and some of the best names in American amateur baseball.
- Stat leaders and full statistics are published for the current season.
- A contact page, a team managers list, and Facebook for everything else.
- There is no sign-up form; you find a team manager.
- Seventeen home grounds — high schools, a college, an American Legion post and a town field.
- Official league rules have their own page, and wood is the rule everyone knows.
- A photo gallery, plus newspaper photographs from a game at Colby.
- No sponsor is named.
- A playoff bracket every August, and a midseason tournament at Colby College.
- Six titles on the record, including back-to-back doubles for Winthrop and Bethel.
- A president who plays second base, and a managers list.
- How old, how good, and whether a fifty-six-year-old can still do this.
- An official rules page and a PTL archive.
- Late May to early August, with a round robin in the middle.
- Nothing is for sale.
- The league keeps an umpires page in its navigation.
Compare