Jim Baumer speaks at Lisbon Historical Society

As noted previously, Jim Baumer spoke tonight at the monthly meeting of the Lisbon Historical Society. Baumer's experiences growing up in Lisbon and following the town team (the Roberts 88ers) greatly influenced his love of baseball, and eventually inspired him to write his current book. While the book ("When Towns Had Teams") will look at the history of town team ball throughout Maine, tonight's talk focused on the various teams from Lisbon.

Baseball boomed in this country in the post depression years. There were hundreds of minor league teams throughout the country, and thousands of players tried their hand at pro ball. Many young men played for a couple of years then went to work at "real jobs", often in mills where they would play for the local town teams. The towns maintained strong identities and the baseball teams were a source of pride, particularly in a small town like Lisbon. Rivalries were formed with other towns, and beating one of the "city teams" was an event to be celebrated. Lisbon was represented by a succession of teams, including the Worumbo Indians, the Lisbon Merchants and the Roberts 88ers.

The Worumbo Indians existed in the 1930's and 1940's, and at one point featured future major leaguer Eddie Waitkus. They were sponsored by the Worumbo Textile Mill, and most of the players held jobs in the mill. In the 1950's, the Lisbon Merchants were the local team, sponsored (perhaps not coincidentally) by the town's businesses. Jim's earliest memories were of the Roberts 88ers (Roberts pharmacy, I believe), the team that his uncle Bob Baumer played for. According to Jim, the players on this team were as much his heroes as Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith and Jim Lonborg of the Red Sox were. The local men took their baseball seriously and were role models for how to play the game "the right way". For Jim, it was a thrill just to play catch with these men. Several former Lisbon players were in attendance Wednesday evening, and inevitably stories were being swapped by the end of the night. I'm not always convinced that the stories are 100% factual, but it's fun to listen to the former players remenisce about the good old days.

Jim spent some time reflecting on some of the many accomplishments of the Lisbon teams, but he also spoke about the decline of local amateur baseball. At present, there are only two amatuer leagues in the state, the Twilight League in Southern Maine, and the Bay League in the Bangor area. As town have become less identified with the teams, it's been more difficult to gain the financial support needed to run the leagues. Whereas the Lisbon teams used to charge admission to their home games, now it is a challenge to get sponsorship from the local businesses. Jim, who coaches a team in the Twilight League, is working diligently to drum up support for the amateur leagues. He sees how local baseball was passed down from generation to generation (his son now plays in college and in the Twilight League), and hopes to see this tradition continue for years to come.

Baseball at any level is fun to watch and worthy of our support. We focus a lot on the professional game (admittedly, the primary focus of this site), but there would be no professional players without the amateur training ground. So its my challenge to everybody who reads this blog (both of you!) to get out to a local amateur game this summer, and try to keep the tradition alive.

Also, keep your eyes out for Jim's book, which he hopes to publish around the time of the World Series this fall. I'll post updates as I get them. Jim Baumer's labor of love promises to be a good read and a trip back in time well worth taking.

I had a terrific time at the Lisbon Historical Society meeting. I didn't know a single soul in the room, and had a few people look at me sideways and say, "Do I know who you are?" I met quite a few people who are interested in preserving local history. The LHS has done a lot of work accumulating any printed articles of local interest, cataloging and making them available to the public. They also have a nice display of local artifacts - pictures, baseball uniforms, artifacts from the local mills, etc. It's clearly a mission that its members take seriously, and they do it very well. Congratulations to them for caring so much.

UPDATE: Jim actually referred to me and my blog in his blog. Am I starting to arrive?