By Colleen Stone
MaineToday.com

Like any Massachusetts native with a soul, I am a Red Sox fan. Unfortunately, getting tickets can be next to impossible. And unless you're OK with shelling out serious cash, leave the kids at home. Luckily, baseball fans in Maine have the next best thing — The Portland Sea Dogs, Boston's Double-A affiliate.

The Sea Dogs have been around since 1993, when they began as the affiliate of the Florida Marlins. In 2002, the team became affilated with the Red Sox and changed their uniforms' color scheme to reflect it. You might just see a future Red Sox player at a game; Kevin Millar was a Sea Dog.

On a warm spring day (rare in Maine) that smelled like baseball, I drove to Hadlock Field. Met with full parking lots, I went down a side street to turn around and saw a crude sign: "Parking $4." A little girl who could have been cast in The Bad News Bears waved me onto her lawn. "You musta been here before. You know how to park," she said from under her baseball cap. Though I do have fantastic parking skills, I told her I was a first-timer and relished her praise. Maybe too much. She peeled off ones for my change and I crossed the street to buy a ticket.

I splurged on a box seat for eight bucks. Eight bucks! Once inside (the Bay City Roller's "Saturday Night" greeted my arrival, despite it being Monday), my first order of business was beer. My research is ongoing, you see. A minute and $4.50 later, I had a cold cup of locally produced Geary's — all without having to jockey for position with throngs of drunks. I settled into my seat to the left of home plate, soaked up the early-evening sun and perked up when a little boy gave the order to "play ball!"

The Sea Dogs' opponent this day was the Trenton Thunder, the Double-A affiliate of the Yankees. Read: Evil-in-training. The crowd was into it. When the Sea Dogs' Eric Johnson cracked a homer, it might as well have been Manny Ramirez hitting one off of Jose Contreras, the way they cheered. A man in front of me kept a careful record of the game's events on his score card.

If the crowd's enthusiasm wasn't lacking, neither was its intensity. It voiced loud disapproval when Trenton manager Stump Merrill (from Harpswell, Maine) charged the field to challenge a safe call. People seemed to think Stump bore a resemblance to Don Zimmer, you know, of being-thrown-to-the-ground-like-a-bowling-ball-by-Pedro-Martinez fame? Suddenly, cries of "Zimmah, ZimmAH" rang out. Like Bostonians, Mainers seem to drop their r's more once in a ballpark. I snickered and sipped my beer.

The between innings entertainment featured a race around the bases between a little girl and Slugger, the Sea Dogs' mascot, whom the kids adore. (Notice a theme here? Lots of kids at the game.) OK, adults like him, too. In a Maine twist on the Milwaukee Brewers' sausage races, people donned B&M Baked Beans costumes and raced. I couldn't tell whether the cans were different flavors ("Go, bacon and onion!") but none of them was taken out by a bat by a Sea Dogs player, a la the Italian in Milwaukee last summer. Next time I go to a game, I'm getting in on the bean race action for sure.

The innings rolled on and the conversation between three high school boys behind me regarding such things as how much Outkast's "Roses" rocks provided a refreshing soundtrack. I left to get a hot dog and fries (about $5) and came back to a quieter scene. The Sea Dogs were down by one. Not good. I put my sweater on to combat the chilly breeze rolling in and sat up a little straighter.

Sea Dogs pitcher Juan Perez replaced reliever Ryan Larson and struck out seven, setting the Sea Dogs up for a comeback. They tied it back up in the bottom of the seventh and both teams went scoreless in the eighth. Then came the ninth. All Trenton hitters retired without a hit. Bottom of the ninth, still tied. "Extra innings," I thought, as the sun sank behind the stadium and goosebumps dotted my arms. A hit. A walk. Another hit. Bases loaded. Kenny Perez at the plate. "If he hits this, they could win," a father whispered to his wide-eyed daughter.

Crack.

A bases-loaded single and the winning run. Cheers erupt and bleachers become makeshift bongos. For a minute, I'm in Fenway. Only I still have cash left and I'm mere minutes from home.