More Than a Game: Marty Lyons Classic Returns with Cheers, Cleats, and Community
Bar Harbor Ball Field Becomes a Field of Dreams for Kids—and Volunteers—This Weekend
BAR HARBOR—This weekend, the announcer’s voice will echo along the southern side of downtown, calling out from the ball field for two days, beginning on Friday evening at 5:30 p.m.
Cars will fill the ball field parking lot and it won’t be tourists taking up the spaces this weekend. It will be locals and people from all around the county and even from Caribou. Players will get out of cars along School Street, Park Street, and Ledgelawn Avenue, lacing up their cleats, getting ready.
It’s a Mount Desert Island tradition and it’s a big one.
“This weekend Acadian Youth Sports will host our 26th annual Marty Lyons Classic,” said Acadian Youth Sports Board President Tony McKim.
Nine majors teams (ages 11-12) and eight minors teams (ages 9-10) will compete starting Friday night through Sunday for the coveted championship trophies.
“It's a big weekend for Acadian Youth Sports that puts this on and requires a lot of volunteers to welcome that many teams. If you can help out, we'd love your help,” Jeremy Dougherty said.
They need more volunteers for scorekeeping, scoreboard operating, announcing, and snack shack help. People can sign up to help via Google sheets.
Volunteers also count pitches and maintain the field. The majors teams are: Acadians, Brewer, Bucksport, Caribou, Coastal, Ellsworth, Hermon, Lincoln and Old Town. The minor teams are: Acadians l, Blueberry Kings, Brewer, Caribou, Corinna, Ellsworth, Lincoln, Old Town.
They will play 32 games from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Games start at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, and at 8 a.m. on the weekend days.
Marty Lyons was the executive director for the Harbor House for years and the founder of Little League on MDI. McKim took over that Little League duty about thirty years ago, but Lyons, he said, was a dedicated servant to children all over MDI.
Baseball is about winners and losers, obviously, but it’s also about support, the opportunity to have another chance at bat or to catch that random fly ball. It’s about looking after each other, too.
So, it’s about community and care. And that care is apparent every time someone cheers for someone else’s kid’s hit, every time someone volunteers to help, every time a kid books it home.
McKim said in 2023, “The event, although now exhausting to me at 56, lol, is wonderful to watch.”
With flair and tons of enthusiastic gusto and that same togetherness, Dougherty always announces the players like they are super stars and for the weekend? They are.
It’s a massive, community affair.
The tournament has sometimes been called organized chaos, but there’s another layer underneath that. It’s kindness. It’s the togetherness McKim often mentions when talking about the tourney. It’s about making random connections and moments that don’t have anything to do with the actual game.
“(We watch) our small team of community members rally together. Sometimes the Acadians win and sometimes we don’t. But we are always there to the bitter end. Together,” McKim said in 2023, but it would be a safe bet that the sentiment applies to this year, too.
Dougherty said, “If nothing else, swing by the ballfields and say hello. Just follow the sounds of kids laughing and the really loud announcer.”
File photos: Bar Harbor Story