LEWISTON — Sometimes, in life, you have to swing at the high, outside pitches.

Fred Hall learned that — quite literally — as a senior in high school.

Playing baseball for the Auburn Asas, the four-sport Lewiston High School athlete was what he calls the “token local” on the amateur ball club.

“The first year I was with the Asas, I was kind of a utility guy,” Hall said. “They let me play, but it was a little discouraging.”

One game, with a host of family and friends out to Pettengill Park to watch him play, he was stuck coaching first base.

“I’m coaching first base, and I’m suffering big time,” Hall remembered. “It was against the Farmington Flyers, and they had an All-American pitcher. I’m coaching first base, I’m embarrassed, it’s a tie ballgame, it’s the seventh or eighth inning, the guy at the plate had already struck out twice. He’s freezing and he takes the first two pitches and he’s 0-2.”

Manager Phil Dugas jumped out of the dugout.

“He’s a Billy Martin-type,” Hall said. “He comes flying out of the dugout. We had a man on second base, too. He stops the game. He screams at me, he says, ‘Hall! Can you hit this guy?’ I turn around and, not so bright, I screamed, ‘Yes!’

“It’s like a blackout,” Hall said. “I go back to the bench, go up, and the count is 0-2. In those days, what they’d do, if you had an 0-2 count, they’d send one at your chin, to wake you up. In this case, he sent one high and wide. I hit it, it fell in, we scored the run.”

Hall played every game for the rest of the year.

“The only stat I’m really proud of, was the next year, I hit .341 for that team, and we won the championship both years,” Hall said. “That was my moment.”

It’s a moment that served him well. Always an athlete who loved to think his way through games and situations, Hall had many moments like his brush with greatness for the Asas. There were other exciting moments for him when he played high school basketball, baseball, golf or football, or playing baseball at Bowdoin College. He also enjoyed lifetime sports like tennis, racquetball and even more golf.

“My philosophy, I’ve been so wrapped up in sports all my life,” Hall said. “It was also a blueprint for everything I’ve done in business and family. In business, I always tried to put the right people in the right position. The guys may be good here, but if you put him there, he may not be so good. So you treat everyone like a teammate and make sure you have the right chemistry. That’s the story of life, if you think about it.”

It has been a life — athletically and otherwise — well-lived for Hall, who is one of five athletes being inducted this year into the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame.

“It sounds so cliche to the kids today, but I’d rather be known for how I played the game, rather than how well I played the game, that’s an accomplishment,” Hall said. “That’s kind of the icing on the cake, when they turn around and say, ‘You ought to be in (the hall of fame).’ I know just about everybody in there, played either against them or for them, and to be there with them is truly an honor.”

‘The original gym rat’

Hall’s life and life in sports began nearly simultaneously. Growing up near the Lewiston Armory and, at the time, Lewiston High School, his exposure to most of the city’s sports began at a young age.

“Everything was there,” Hall said. “At age five or six, I would just gravitate over there, the original gym rat, or whatever you called it in those days. I just loved sports, and I liked to be around it.”

And, Hall said, he and his friends were into everything.

“We had a lot more fun,” Hall said. “And I say that in the right way. We weren’t playing for any other reason, other than to enjoy the game. We loved to be out there. We loved to compete.”

The joy of competition and a knack for executing those athletic endeavors — and yes, his ability to surround himself with a strong supporting cast — enabled Hall to excel in several sports. In high school, from which he graduated in 1955, he played football and was an all-state quarterback. He played basketball, and was part of a system that set the stage for future state titles. And he played baseball and golf on alternating days in the spring, lettering in both sports.

Baseball calls

But baseball was his passion.

“We used to go to (the Asas) games, crossed the trestle and walked over, it was a big deal,” Hall said. “Fast forward to high school, my favorite sport was baseball, and they used to select one person who was in high school to be the token local player. One year, my senior year, they called me.”

After his rise from base coach to star hitter, Hall graduated from Lewiston High School and enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He led the school’s freshman team in slugging and RBIs. As a junior, he was on pace to do the same when he suffered an injury to his leg. Then, he found a way to remain with the game anyway, as a coach. That summer, as he rehabbed his injury, he helped coach the Lewiston P.A.L. teams.

As a senior, Hall returned to form, and again led the Polar Bears in slugging and RBI.

Not done yet

Always the athlete, Hall wasn’t one to stop competing, even after his formal playing days were over. He dabbled in coaching, and even officiating. And he continued to compete, picking golf and tennis back up on a more regular basis. Tennis, in particular, yielded even more success, as Hall again partnered with some other solid athletes and helped grow the game in Lewiston.

“That whole program, we were kind of the catalysts, getting it all going,” Hall said. “This was all the breeding ground for that. We’d go down to Portland to tournaments, and they’d look at us like, ‘Who are these guys, from Lewiston?’ We’d play all these guys who played in college. We didn’t play in college. But we’d beat ’em up, especially in doubles, because we were scrappy. So Lewiston tennis, all of a sudden, we’re a blue-collar community, and we eventually developed the best tennis program in the state.”

Some eventual products of the tennis group included longtime tennis coach Anita Murphy, who still coaches the Lewiston girls’ program, and her son Ron Chicoine, who has won numerous individual and doubles titles, as well as coaching the Lewiston boys to a 137-2 record from 2003-2011. Bates College coach Paul Gastonguay was also among those who came to play after Hall and his friends set the wheels in motion for the creation of the area’s since-closed indoor facility, which spurned the sport’s growth.

And then there is golf.

Part of several teams to win area tournaments, Hall continues to find himself on winning teams.

He did make a concession a couple of years back, though: He now plays from the forward tees.

“I was in denial, and then about two years ago, I said, ‘Aw, to heck with it,'” Hall said. “What are you gonna do? You do the best you can with what you got.”

The key, Hall surmised, to his decades of success in athletics? He never stopped playing.

“I love competition. That’s probably the theme,” Hall said. “If someone would say, ‘He’s a pretty good athlete, but that son of a gun was a good competitor,’ I was good with that. I love to win, but when I got beat, as long as I could make the guy earn it, that was a good feeling, too.

“My secret was I played for seven decades,” Hall added. “And I never stopped, and don’t intend to.”

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