After all these years, Sanford baseball fans still love their Mainers
Sanford — The Sanford Mainers grabbed early championship momentum, defeating the Danbury Westerners 3-1 in Game 1 of the NECBL championship series Sunday at Goodall Park, taking a 1-0 lead in the best-of showdown. The victory marked the Mainers' second appearance in the final within three years, continuing a quarter-century run of summer baseball that has become a cornerstone of life in this coastal city.
For Amber Sanchez, the win carried a deeper emotional weight. Standing in the grandstands of Goodall Park, tears welled as memories of her grandmother, Elizabeth Cardona, surfaced. Cardona, a New Jersey native and longtime Springvale resident, died in January at age 78. She was known across the league as "The Cowbell Lady"—a fixture whose noisemaker punctuated every Sanford homer. Sanchez began attending games with her grandmother in 2011, just the two of them. Today, at least half a dozen family members make the trip together, turning a personal ritual into a multi-generational tradition.
That sense of rootedness extends throughout the community. Jacob Ouellette, who started with the organization as a volunteer in 2005 and now chairs the Mainers' board of directors, says the team's enduring appeal lies in its hometown identity. "Any sport, any team, you hear the cliché that fans bleed this color or that color," Ouellette said. "But what I love, what this team has done to the greater Sanford community, is the fact that it's a hometown team, something that people can get behind, rally around and be supportive of." Frank and Roxanne Bumford, both 71 of Lebanon and celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, echo that sentiment. The couple, who have umpired Little League games for decades—including when current Mainers pitcher TJ Curley was a youngster—say the ballpark is where they regularly run into neighbors and friends. "Some of the kids come back year to year, you feel like you get to know them, and then they move on," Frank said. "Hopefully they get to the majors and you get to say, 'Hey, I know that guy.'" Roxanne, meanwhile, pours over the players' stats, a habit that sometimes drives her husband crazy.
For the players, the connection is mutual. TJ Curley, a native Sanford native now pitching at Stonehill College, recalled his first memories of the park. "I remember coming here as a little kid, these guys looked like they were seven feet tall. It was just the best experience in the world," he said. Now, watching kids in the stands ask for autographs or a baseball, he sees his younger self. "I see myself in them," Curley said.
The bond isn't one-sided. General manager Aaron Izaryk, who has been with the Mainers for 24 years as a player, head coach, and now in the front office, credits a network of sponsors and host families for much of the team's success. "(Part of the success is) through sponsors and host families. It's a network of all those people. It's symbiotic," Izaryk said. "They do a good job for us, our guys do a good job in the community for them and make it all work. That is what this league is and what I think it can be, the mutual investment of time." Over the years, several local families have hosted teams for more than a decade, weaving the franchise into the fabric of daily life in Sanford and surrounding towns.
Goodall Park itself holds a slice of baseball history: Babe Ruth once hit a home run there during an exhibition barnstorming tour in 1919. The Mainers, who have called the park home since 2002, have already won titles in 2004 and 2008, and 11 alumni have gone on to play in the major leagues, most notably outfielder Adam Duval and infielder Joey Wendle. Last month, the Mainers hosted the NECBL All-Star Game, drawing at least a dozen Major League scouts who observed the league's talent pool. With the championship series tied up—and Game 2 postponed Tuesday and rescheduled for Wednesday at 6:35 p.m. in Danbury, Connecticut—Game 3, if necessary, would follow at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday in Sanford. Until then, the Mainers hold a slim lead, but in a town where baseball is measured in generations as much as innings, the real victory may already be counted in the faces in the stands.
