AUBURN – Fifty years ago, Auburn Suburban Little League was the only summer game in a town with more handcrafted, backyard ball fields than television sets.
Now the venerable organization is trudging along like so many institutions of yesteryear, striving to stay relevant, attract a generation that’s harder to entertain and avoid becoming just another twice-weekly event on a harried mom or dad’s palm pilot.
“You know what you don’t see anymore? You don’t see a kid riding down the road on his bicycle with a glove wrapped around the handlebars and carrying a bat in the basket,” said Ted Lambert, one of the league’s founding fathers.
Last week might have demonstrated the quandary better than any other seven-day period in the sports calendar year.
Most all-sports television networks and Web sites (you’ve got it, both would have been otherworldly, Orwellian concepts in 1957) afforded the World Cup semifinals and the impending start of National Football League training camp significantly more coverage than the release of the rosters for baseball’s All-Star Game.
Or let’s say you’re not a sports shut-in, and you actually wanted to catch a local game after a tough Wednesday or Thursday at work.
Your odds of walking into an air-conditioned gymnasium or ice rink and finding a youth summer league contest in progress were infinitely better than unearthing two teams in any age bracket sweating it out on a baseball diamond.
“We schedule around that. Our season used to go from May to early August.
“Now, we’re pretty much done by the first or second week of July.”
Competition from technology, travel and alternative sports has trimmed the talent pool and required the league to employ creative scheduling to give today’s kids the same opportunities their parents enjoyed only 10 to 20 years ago.
The number of Junior and Senior Little League teams (ages 13 to 16) has dipped from 10 to six in recent years.
Once a self-contained league, Auburn Suburban has begun scheduling regular-season games against rival leagues in New Auburn, South Lewiston, New Gloucester and Cumberland.
“So many parents take their kids to Portland for year-round soccer or year-round football or year-round this or year-round that,” said Gene Benner, an Auburn Suburban alum and now owner of Bessey Motors in South Paris.
“When we played, we had the PAL (Police Athletic League), and then we had Suburban.
“That was it.”
Hey, don’t write the obituary for youth baseball just yet.
Other games might be more trendy, or they might lure kids with the promise of continuous action and greater playing time.
But Auburn Suburban still gave 320 local youths a chance to play organized baseball or softball this spring and summer, a far cry from its humble, four-team beginnings in the good ol’ days.
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