McLaughlin plays baseball in Puerto Rico
By Kevin Sjoberg
MARS HILL – Baseball has been a dominant aspect of Logan McLaughlin’s life since he picked up the sport around the time he started attending grade school. However, he has never played the game as much as he did this year, from the time workouts with his high school team began in late March until the American Legion season ended for his Lincoln Lumber team in mid-July.
In-between, he experienced the trip of a lifetime as he spent the week of July 4-10 immersed in the game as part of a Coast to Coast Athletics program which competed in Puerto Rico.
“I’m glad I went,” said McLaughlin, a Central Aroostook High School student who just began his senior year. “It helped my game a lot and I think it will really help me next year.”
McLaughlin became a member of the elite team after performing well at a tryout held in the summer of 2009 at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor. He received a packet in the mail two weeks later and had the choice of attending showcase camps in Florida or Arizona or making the trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“The timing worked best for Puerto Rico,” McLaughlin said. “The others would have interfered with the basketball season or the school baseball playoffs.”
The 13-member team had the representation of nine different states. He joined Chris Joselyn of Camden as the only Mainers on the squad. McLaughlin said he felt he fit right in talentwise. “Everyone in the lineup one through nine was good – we were all pretty equal,” he said. “I didn’t think that was going to be the case going in, but I felt good about the way I played.”
The schedule consisted of workouts in the morning and games at night. Rain caused postponements of the first two scheduled games, so McLaughlin’s team ended up playing eight games in three days. He said the whole experience was beneficial to him as a player.
“The drills were great,” he said. “We were taught a lot about mechanics and did some classroom sessions, too.”
McLaughlin pitched seven innings in the games against different Puerto Rican squads, giving up a total of two earned runs. When he wasn’t pitching, he played center field and at the plate collected 10 hits in his 20 at bats. The USA team won six of the eight games it played.
“It was a lot different,” McLaughlin recalled. “The neighborhood was kind of rough and when there was a foul ball, we had to go in groups of two or three to chase after it. Another thing I saw for the first time in baseball was someone having to catch a chicken on the field.
“A couple of the fields were nice, others weren’t as well maintained,” he said. “But the players we played against were all nice, even though they didn’t speak a lot of English.”
McLaughlin said he returned from the trip with some great memories and more knowledge of the game. When combining the games he played in Puerto Rico with his games with the Eastern Maine Class D champion CA Panthers this spring and the Lincoln Lumber this summer, McLaughlin said he competed in 44 baseball games during the calendar year.
“It was busy, but baseball is my sport and then one I really want to play after I’m finished high school,” he said.
McLaughlin is now considering attending a Coast to Coast Athletics showcase camp just after Christmas in either Florida or Arizona, which will include five days of workouts, instructional times and intersquad games.d
Contributed photos
FIRING in a pitch during a game at Ocean Park in San Juan, Puerto Rico in mid-July is Logan McLaughlin of Mars Hill.
LOGAN MCLAUGHLIN of Mars Hill, second from left, was on a Coast to Coast Athletics travel baseball team which competed in San Juan, Puerto Rico in July. From left are coach Chip Stahl, McLaughlin, coach James King and coach Kip Borg.
