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Sister Mary Athanasia of Portland, christened Florence Irene Woods, the teenage idol of neighborhood boys because of her powerful and accurate throwing ability. She amazed members of Portland teams in the New England League at Bayside Park with her arm and batting skill. She was the envy of many a boy at Cathedral Grammar, where she mixed discipline with goodly doses of baseball in the schoolyard. Sister Athanasia’s baseball activities were largely confined to Portland’s Bayside Park and the local Cathedral Grammar schoolyard. “Smokey” Woods caught batting practice and shagged flies for the 1913 Portland team in the New England League managed by Hughey Duffy, and played on several area teams sharp enough to exploit her throwing arm and exceptional batting eye. She spread the baseball gospel for almost a half century as a sidelight to churchly duties.

ARCHER, a native of Bethel, Conn., played for the Portland Pilots in the New England League in ‘the late 40s. was catcher-manager of the Pawtucket, R.I., club in that-loop, was bullpen catcher and coach for the Boston Braves, pitched H. G. Pride to the Portland Twilight League title in 1958 and won the league batting title with a 423 average. He’s been a top umpire for more than 20 years.

ANGELIDES ATTENDED the University of Maine for a semester in ‘42, then enlisted in the air force, where he remained until °46. Back at UM, he and catcher Bates catcher Norm Parent were the only unanimous choices on the ’47 all-state college team. While a .350 shortstop that summer for Dexter in the Tri-County League, he was signed by Phillies’ scout Chuck Ward. Harry was accustomed to fast company. Overseas, he.played with such. major league standouts as Enos Slaughter, Johnny Mize, Joe Gordon,. Howie Pollett, Birdie Tebbetts, Max West, Manny Fernandez and Johnny Sturm. Angelides played with future Portland Pilots Mike Romello and Jackie Cusick in °48. In 47 at Wilmington, he roomed with Phils’ mound great Curt Simmons. HARRY PLAYED ALL FOUR infield positions for Wilmington, Del., of the Interstate League, but his days became numbered. after an exhibition game with the Dodgers during spring training tn 1949. He came out second best in a collision at second base on a double play pivot, suffering a spine injury. A baseball smack in the eye the previous fall, also against a Dodger farm club, didn’t help, He returned to the Pine Tree State, tried out with the Pilots, realized he couldn’t get rid of the ball in a hurry, and returned to Orono to complete his education. Harry Angelides turned to golf for vigorous exercise. He whittled his handicap drastically and channeled excess energy into the administrative side of the game. He's Maine State Golf Association vice president. From Legacy Pages http://www.albert-burpee.com/obituaries/harry-e-angelides/ 94, August 25, 1923-June 13, 2018. After college, Harry played triple A baseball and In 1945 Harry was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies. An unfortunate accident during a preseason game ended his baseball career. Harry was inducted to the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame (1977) as well as the Lewiston Auburn Sports Hall of Fame (2006) for his accomplishments in Baseball.

The Great Depression was a time most people would rather forget, but it was also a period when Franklin County baseball fans cultivated fond memories of an overpowering southpaw pitcher named Stanley Allen. Allen, now 78 and living in South Berwick, pitched five no-hitters during his career that peaked from 1925-34. The career, however, ended prematurely because of a knee injury. Possessing a baffling curve and a wicked fastball, Allen once struck out 94 batters in 52 innings in his senior season at Strong High School. He also pitched the first of his no-hitters that season when his earned run average was as skimpy as a burlesque queen’s outfit. after high school Allen went to Kent’s Hill Academy where he was captain of the baseball team. He sparkled on the mound, losing only one game his initial season. Semi-pro baseball then beckoned Allen. He overpowered opponents with his array of pitches and frustrated them further with pin-point control. He threw four no-hitters in semi-pro ball, pitching for numerous teams throughout Maine. Once Allen tossed a no-hitter on Saturday and came back to pitch a shutout on Monday. He owned a rubber arm, often pitching three games in a week —each time for a different ballclub. Allen, a legend in Franklin County, was always in popular demand by semi-pro ballclubs because he was best in important games. That’s what made Allen so tough. He displayed ‘‘grace under pressure.

Vinnie Allen Allen, who died at age 28, twice was an All-Telegram league centerfield selection at Portland High, starred at the same position at Bridgton Academy and was All-Maine in college baseball at Colby. He captained baseball teams at each school. The long ball was his trademark, but it couldn't overshadow his consistency at the plate. He batted 352 as a high school sophomore, .428 as a junior and .476 in his senior year. One of Allen's biggest home runs came in the tenth inning against Westbrook High ace Harold (Ubbie) Craft. The strong right arm, respected by base runners, also came in handy on the football field. In addition to being a slashing two way end, Alien did much of the passing and all of the kicking for Portland High. Allen was baseball coach at Shead Memorial High, Eastport, before becoming teacher-coach at Gardiner High In September of 1942. He died February 3, 1943.

A successful coach, Ainsworth Is best remembered by Maine fans as an umpire in the 1930s, Ainsworth was busy pitching and coaching. He was a durable, heady right-hander who appeared for several teams including the Mercantile League's Fox A.C. One day. Ainsworth pitched and won both ends of a double header and was six for nine at the plate. He coached East Deering Cummings school to three grammar school titles in six years in 1930s. He presently coaches the Yarmouth Senior-Little League team that went 10-1 to win the championship in 1984. But it was as an umpire that Ainsworth really starred. A charter member of the Western Maine board he began in 1946. For the next 27 years he worked games on every level from junior high to college. Ainsworth was a perennial choice for the state American Legion tournament at Togus. Five times-he was selected for New England Legion tournaments and was twice elected to work in the legion World Series. Ainsworth, also a fine Bowler, lives in Yarmouth. a town he represented in the Maine Legislature from 1982 to 1984

Samuel Aceto was former owner of the Portland Pilots in the New England League in the late 1940's Sportsman Aceto long has backed Deering High athletics Aceto stepped into the baseball picture in 1946 to keep the portland pilots here until 1949 when local attendance wasn't matched by other New England franchises Aceto is nationally known in harness racing , He owns Oteca Stables From Fun While it Lasted https://funwhileitlasted.net/2014/02/28/1947-1949-portland-pilots/ Background The Portland Pilots were a Class B minor league baseball team in the New England League for three summers from 1947 to 1949. The club started out as the woeful last place Portland Gulls during the first season of New England League in 1946. Gulls owner John J. Haley ran out of money to pay his players late in the 1946 season and was ordered by League President Claude Davidson to find a buyer. The Gulls were bailed out by local contractor Sam Aceto, sign shop owner Herbert Curry and hotelier William Richard in August 1946 which allowed the team to complete the season. Prior to the 1947 season, the first full campaign under Aceto’s leadership, the team was renamed the Portland Pilots.

From Society for American Baseball Research https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot Indian tribe of Maine, played in only 94 major league games, but is remembered today as the first Native American, and first recognized minority, to perform in the National League. He was signed by the Cleveland Spiders in 1897, fifty years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Sockalexis, like Robinson a multi-talented athlete who excelled in football and track as well as baseball, appeared destined for stardom, but alcoholism derailed his promising career. He is, however, at least indirectly responsible for the nickname "Indians" as applied to the present American League team in Cleveland. Louis Francis Sockalexis was born on the Penobscot reservation in Old Town, Maine, on October 24, 1871. He was the son of Francis Sockalexis, a logger who later served as governor (formerly called "chief") of the Penobscot, and the former Frances Sockbeson. Francis Sockalexis was a fine athlete, but Louis, who grew to be nearly six feet tall with straight black hair and a muscular build, was the best athlete in the tribe. Louis won footraces and throwing contests against all challengers, and his natural baseball ability led him to play semipro ball for various teams in Maine during his late teens and early twenties. In 1894, after playing college ball at Ricker Classical Institute in Maine, Louis spent the summer at a seaside resort, patrolling the outfield for a baseball nine sponsored by the Poland Spring Hotel. One of his teammates was Mike (Doc) Powers, a future major-leaguer who, at the time, was the captain of the baseball team at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Powers was impressed with Sockalexis' talent, and convinced Louis, a Catholic, to enroll at the Jesuit-run institution. This he did in the fall of that year. Louis excelled on the diamond at Holy Cross, batting .436 in 1895 and .444 in 1896, and also starred as a running back on the school's first football team in the fall of 1896. He ran track, specializing in the medium and long distances and reportedly winning five events in a single meet. However, it was as a baseball player that he shone most brightly. An incredible throw he made one day from deep center field to the plate was measured by a group of professors at 413 feet, an unofficial national record at the time. He may have been the best college player in the country, and began to draw interest from National League clubs. The Cleveland Spiders had the inside track, as two members of that team, outfielder Jesse Burkett and infielder James (Chippy) McGarr, coached for Holy Cross during the spring months. Louis took hitting tips from Burkett, the two-time NL batting champion, and looked forward to the day when he would compete at baseball's highest level. From Art Cards http://arslongaartcards.com/cards/pioneer-portraits-ii/louis-sockalexis/ “The Deerfoot of the Diamond” (1871-1913). A Maine native & son of a Penobscot chief, Sockalexis was one of the most gifted athletes ever to play the game. A pioneering Native American, Sockalexis endured intimidation and abuse throughout his all-too-brief career. He starred for the Fighting Irish before joining the Cleveland Spiders in 1897. His legacy lives today whenever the Cleveland Indians take the field—many believe that mascot to be a post-mortem tribute to this early star. Harvard professors measured his throw at 414′ While at Notre Dame, he homered in the Polo Grounds off future Hall of Famer Amos Rusie John McGraw called him the “greatest natural talent” he had ever encountered in the game From SABR archive This is bounding Sockalexis, Fielder of the mighty Clevelands. Like the catapult in action, For the plate he throws the baseball, Till the rooter, blithely rooting, Shouts until he shakes the bleachers. "Sockalexis, Sockalexis, Sock it to them Sockalexis." - 1897 poem, author unknown http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-rise-and-fall-of-louis-sockalexis Sockalexis was an instantaneous success. Before the season even began, he was a hero. The March 27, 1897 issue of Sporting Life contained this report: "SOCKALEXIS, THE INDIAN, came to town Friday, and in 24 hours was the most popular man about the Kennard House, where he is stopping. He is a massive man, with gigantic bones and bulging muscles, and looks a ball player from the ground up to the top of his five feet, 11 inches of solid frame work. In a letter to [Spiders'] President Robison, Mr. John Ward says: `I congratulate you on securing Sockalexis. I have seen him play perhaps a dozen games, and I unhesitatingly pronounce him a wonder. Why he has not been snapped up before by some League club looking for a sensational player is beyond my comprehension.'. . . THEY'RE INDIANS NOW. There is no feature of the signing of Sockalexis more gratifying than the fact that his presence on the team will result in relegating to obscurity the title of `Spiders' by which the team has been handicapped for several reasons, to give place to the more significant name `Indians.' On the field Sockalexis was equally sensational. For the first two and one-half months of the season his name was in the headlines on a daily basis for his spectacular hitting and fielding, and he became the hottest gate attraction in baseball. On June 16 the Cleveland club came to the Polo Grounds for the first time, and the park was packed with New York fans eager to see pitcher Amos Rusie even the score with Sockalexis. In their first meeting Sock had tagged the Giants' ace for two hits. Rusie, who would later be elected to the Hall of Fame, owned the best curveball of the day, and the New York press had hyped the showdown for weeks. When Sockalexis came to bat in the first inning, a group in the bleachers rose to their feet and split the air with derisive war whoops. Undeterred, Sock smacked a Rusie curveball over the right fielder's head for a home run, bringing the war whoops to an abrupt end. On July 3 Sockalexis was hitting .328 (81-for-247), with 40 runs scored, 39 RBIs and 16 stolen bases. And then, suddenly, the bottom fell out. He did not appear in the lineup again until July 8; he played on July 11 and 12, not again until July 24-25 and after that only three more times the remainder of the season. Hughie Jennings, another future Hall of Famer, would later describe our hero's precipitous downfall in a series of syndicated reminiscences called Rounding Third (1926). "The turning point in his career came in Chicago," wrote Jennings. "It happened as a result of a play in the opening game of the series. When Cleveland came to bat in the ninth, the score was 3-0 in favor of Chicago. Cleveland filled the bases with two out, and Sockalexis came to bat. He hit a home run. Then, in the home half of the inning, Chicago got two men on bases with as many out. "The batter smashed a long drive to the outfield. It looked like a home run, but Sockalexis made an almost impossible one-handed catch of the ball. His home run and his catch enabled Cleveland to win, 4-3. 1907 real photo postcard depicting the class D Bangor White Sox of the Maine State League. Relatively nondescript, with one major exception, the presence of Louis Sockalexis, the game's first Native American and first minority to play in the National League. Sockalexis excelled at baseball and football, and enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. There, he took hitting lessons from Cleveland Spiders Jesse Burkett and Chippy McGarr, who signed him to a contract with the Cleveland Spiders in 1897. When manager Patsy Tebeau expressed his enthusiasm for the newcomer to sportswriters, a headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer referred to the team as "Tebeau's Indians." From there, the Spiders nickname disappeared, the team quickly becoming known by its new moniker, named after the turn of the century term for Sockalexis' origin. Sadly, Sockalexis struggled with alcoholism, and did not last very long in the major leagues. He returned to Maine, and after playing with a few loosely organized clubs, played one last season in organized ball, with the Bangor team pictured in this postcard. Sockalexis is pictured sitting on the ground in the front row, left. Sockalexis sadly passed away in 1913. In 1914, the Cleveland baseball team, who had renamed themselves the Cleveland "Naps" in honor of Nap Lajoie, elected to permanently rename themselves the Indians in honor of the popular and tragic Sockalexis. An excellent postcard depicting an important figure in the development of the Cleveland Indians' identity. https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/05/09/louis-sockalexis-tribe-angry-about-chief-wahoo-logo-obviously-does-not-honor-his-legacy

Many will tell you that Bob Boynton was the best ballplayer to come out of Millinocket. Robert C. Boynton was a gifted three-sport athlete at Stearns High School, graduating in 1944. Boynton attended an open tryout in Brewer in 1946 and caught the eye of legendary baseball scout Clyde Sukeforth. Boynton was a “5-tool” player before the term was invented and his efforts were rewarded with a contract offer to play professional baseball in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. In March of 1947 Boynton reported to the Dodgers’ spring training facility at the Pensacola Naval Base in Florida. Under the guidance of baseball guru Branch Rickey, the Dodgers were revolutionizing spring training, and Boynton was indoctrinated into the Dodger way through repetitive instruction and assembly line training techniques. Boynton recalls learning the art of stealing home from the former Gas House Gang leader Pepper Martin. Boynton played the 1947 season with the Kingston GNY) Dodgers in the Hudson Valley League.The local Kingston paper that spring noted:“A second addition to the rapidly growing roster is Bob Boynton, an outfielder on option from Danville. Boynton, a 165 pounder who stands 5’10”, is a native of Millinocket. He throws right and bats left and in the words of manage George Scherger, ‘he runs like a deer’. Boynton was not offered a contract the following year and returned home to Millinocket to begin a 42-year career as a mechanical supervisor with Great Northern Paper. Bob’s baseball career continued with the semi-pro Emerson Pills (named by the team’s owner and local druggist, Robert Emerson). Boynton patrolled the outfield and added mound duties over the next 15 years for the Pills, who competed in the storied Eastern League against other Penobscot County teams from Old Town, Bangor, Milo and Lincoln. Boynton did not forget the lessons learned from Pepper Martin and enhanced his growing reputation as a fearless base stealer. Boynton retired from Great Northern in 1986 and lives today in his hometown of Millinocket. Bob’s wife of 47, Fredericka, passed away in 1991 Their four children, Laurie Cormier,Angel Hibbs, Bruce Boynton and Robert Boynton, Jr., all live close by, however, and proudly lead the acclaim for the induction of their dad and Millinocket’s native son into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame.

George Herbert Walker Bush is known primarily for his service as 41st President of the United States. To Maine, however, Bush is also remembered as an outstanding first baseman for the Kennebunkport Collegians and captain of the Yale baseball team. his introduction into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame recognizes a distinguished career that includes athletics, World War II duty as a Navy pilot and two terms as Vice President. Born in Milton, Mass., Bush graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., on his 18th birthday June 12, 1942. The same day he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a Seaman 2nd Class. Bush completed flight training and was awarded his wings and commission in June, 1943. Still only 18, he was then the Navy's youngest pilot. During World War Il, Bush flew torpedo bombers off the USS San Jacinto. On Sept. 2, 1944, his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire while making a bombing run over the Ronin Island of Chichi Jima, 600 miles south of Japan. Although the plane was afire and severely damaged, he completed his strafing run on the Japanese installation before flying toward the sea. re was able to bail out successfully and was rescued by a Navy Submarine, the USS Finback. For his service in the Pacific Theater, Bush was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and three air medals. After the war, Bush enrolled at Yale University, where he studied economics and served as captain of the varsity baseball team. He played in two NCAA World Series, won the Gordon Brown Prize for “all-around” Student leadership and was graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1948. Following graduation, he moved to Texas. in 1954, at the age of 30, he became co founder and president of Zapata Off-Shore, a firm that was a pioneer in experimental offshore drilling equipment. His political career began in 1964 when Bush ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Two years later, he was elected to the U.S. House of representatives from Texas’ 7th District. One of the few freshman members of Congress ever elected to serve on the Ways and Means Committee, he was re-elected to the House in 1968 without opposition. But he lost a second campaign for the Senate in 1970. During the 1970's, Bush held a number of important leadership positions. in 1971, he was named U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He served there until 1973, when he became chairman of the republican National Committee. He was appointed Director of Central Intelligence in 1976, two years later serving as Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking. in 1980, Ronald Reagan selected Bush as his running mate in the presidential campaign. After two terms as Vice President, Bush became the Republican nominee and was elected President in 1988. Bush and his wife, the former Barbara Pierce of Rye, N.Y., whom he married on Jan. 6, 1945, live in Houston and also spend much time at Kennebunkport. They are the parents of five children and 13 grandchildren. Bush is currently on the board of the Episcopal Church Foundation and serves on the Vestry of St. Ann's Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport. https://sabr.org/research/complete-collegiate-baseball-record-george-hw-bush George H.W. Bush loved baseball and had the leather to prove it Steve Henson, USA TODAY Sports Published 12:34 a.m. ET Dec. 1, 2018 Former President George H.W. Bush passed away on Friday night at age 94 and will be remembered for his love of America and baseball. Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY