The Ballpark sits amid the trees like a vision, a sparkling diamond in a setting of decrepit shacks, creaky amusement-park rides and an eerie, clammy swamp.
Somehow, six years after Jordan Kobritz first envisioned this strange and wondrous sight, the little ballpark has sprouted from the thicket and has changed everyone and everything around it. People used to tell Kobritz that something as intimate and pristine and beautiful as this was not possible.
As visitors enter the Ballpark, its simple and elegant name, they are greeted by the sounds of baseball in its purest form: the twaap of rawhide meeting leather, the shriek of children beckoning for autographs, the cheers of a cozy, happy crowd. In the background are the chants of the hot dog vendors, the crackle of the public-address system and music of the stadium organ.
If the whole experience has a dreamlike quality to it, so it should. How else but in a dream would a summer-resort town with a year-round population of 7,000 become home for the top minor-league affiliate of the Phillies? How else but in a dream would a 40-year-old retired lawyer be able to build his own stadium and buy his own team?
The story of the Jordan Kobritz and his Maine Guides is all so perfect in an imperfect baseball world of drug crises and contract squabbles that it seems too good to be true. Which, alas, it is.
When the gates snap shut and
the fans go home, the dream seems more like a nightmare. In the last eight months, Kobritz has nearly lost his team, has been rejected by two leagues, and even by his own analysis, has antagonized legions of baseball officials. On top of all that, he faces a stadium debt estimated at more than $1 million. Attendance has plummeted in each of the last two seasons. The Phillies have made it clear they would rather have their team in Scranton, Pa., and the consensus is that Kobritz eventually will have to relinquish his dream.
”Everybody said we couldn`t do it, but there`s no such thing as impossible,” Kobritz said. ”This isn`t a job to me; it`s a crusade.”
The story of Kobritz`s strange baseball odyssey began when he arrived home in Bangor one night in 1981 after a long, tedious day in court and announced to his wife, Nicci, ”That`s it.” Seven years of college and a decade of law didn`t satisfy his need to do something rewarding, and he suddenly realized only one thing could: baseball.
Slowly, the concept of the ideal baseball operation began to crystallize in Kobritz`s mind, and he could see a clean, pretty stadium filled with jovial fans enjoying a suspenseful ball game. If he could run the team his way, the right way, there was no reason to believe that this outrageous plan couldn`t work. Or so he thought.
It all seemed so idyllic then, and at least for a while, it was. He persuaded the nearby city of Portland to turn down a plan that would have brought Double-A baseball there, at an expense of $500,000 for stadium renovations, by promising a Triple-A team for free.
Then he lined up the financing, bought the Charleston Charlies of the International League for $600,000, and was offered a 48-acre site in Old Orchard Beach for a relative pittance. The Portland people weren`t exactly thrilled that the site was 14 miles out of town, but Jordan Kobritz was a local hero just the same. His dream was Maine`s dream now, and it was happening.
”At first, this thing didn`t make sense to anyone,” Kobritz recalled.
”People would come by the site just to see what that crazy guy was doing.”
The Guides drew 183,289 in that first season and came within one game of winning the International League championship, but Kobritz`s uncompromising nature was beginning to rankle a few people. He was regarded as a difficult man as an employer because he demanded perfection. As a result, his facility was spotless, and still is, but his reputation was not.
In his second season, 1985, the team, affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, wasn`t quite so good, and neither was attendance. It fell to 146,846. Inevitably, the old questions began to arise again: How can you sustain a ball club in a town that caters largely to hockey-loving French-Canadian tourists from Quebec and Montreal? How can you run a ball club and a stadium at the same time and make both ends profitable?
You can`t, and you can`t. At least that was the impression as the bills began to mount and the pressure began to build for Kobritz.
Because of pending litigation, his rivals in the International League have been advised by lawyers not to speak for attribution, but one said:
”What he did was amazing, incredible. But in those first couple of years, he managed to alienate everyone he came in contact with.
”He`d get up at meetings and tell us how to run our league. Here was this guy with no experience trying to tell us how we should be doing things. And he wasn`t exactly diplomatic about it, either. He never is.”
Last season was devastating for Kobritz and the Guides. The team finished last, the weather was cold and damp throughout the five-month schedule and attendance plunged to 105,578.
Even more worrisome was that he had two bond repayments due, and he didn`t have the $330,000 to cover them. If he defaulted, the town, which had backed his loans because he was so convincing about the guaranteed success of the venture, would be liable for the money.
So Kobritz quietly found a buyer for his Triple-A franchise and arranged a trade that would bring a Double-A team to Old Orchard Beach, plus $2 million to help defray his burgeoning debts.
”I felt like Abraham must have felt when he took Isaac up to the mountain,” Kobritz declared, cringing at the memory. ”I don`t have any kids. My kid is right here, this stadium, this team.”
And it didn`t get any easier when, after he agreed to sell his team, the other half of the deal collapsed. The Double-A Eastern League didn`t want a franchise in Old Orchard Beach, and Kobritz`s penchant for controversy only enhanced that sentiment.
Meanwhile, the International League voted to bar Kobritz from its meetings. It quickly approved the sale of his team to a group of Pennsylvania investors planning to move the Guides to Scranton and stock the club with top minor-league players from the Phillies` affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. The Phils already were committed to moving their Triple-A team to Williamsport, Pa., until a park could be built in Scranton.
Kobritz turned to the profession that he had shunned a few years earlier and sued to nullify the transaction. He argued that the sale of the Triple-A team was contingent on his acquisition of a Double-A franchise.
Just two months before the start of the 1987 season, the court agreed with Kobritz and reinstated the Guides. An appeal is pending, and Kobritz has sued for close to $1 million in damages lost during the six months when his franchise was in limbo.
With opening day approaching so quickly, the Phillies had no choice but to move their affiliate to Old Orchard Beach.
”We really wanted to be in Scranton and still eventually would like to get there,” Phils president Bill Giles said last week during his first visit to the Ballpark. But as his eyes scoured the tree-framed outfield and swept along the rich wood facing of the grandstands, he couldn`t hide his pleasure. ”I`ll tell you, if we can`t get to Scranton, we`d like to stay here longer, because it`s a lot more convenient than being in the Pacific Coast League,” he said. ”And this sure is a cozy little place, isn`t it?”
