The Portland Sea Dogs are a minor league baseball team based in Portland, Maine that currently plays in the Eastern League. The team is sanctioned in the Eastern Division. Established in 1994, the Sea Dogs are the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
The Sea Dogs became part of the Red Sox system for the 2003 season; previously they were affiliated with the Florida Marlins. The change in affiliation brought success in the 2005 and 2006 seasons as the Sea Dogs went to the Eastern League championship series both years. They won their first-ever title on September 17, 2006, defeating the Akron Aeros 8–5 in a rematch of the series from the previous year. It was the first double-A championship for a Red Sox farm team since 1983 when they were based in New Britain, Connecticut.
The Sea Dogs' home stadium is Hadlock Field, named after long-time Portland High School baseball coach Edison Hadlock. It currently has a seating capacity of 7,368. Hadlock Field is often visited by vacationing celebrities, such as former NFL coach Bill Parcells, former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and his wife Barbara. In left field stands the Maine Monster, a 37-foot-tall replica of Fenway Park's Green Monster, complete with Coke bottle and Citgo sign. Along the right-field foul line just beyond first base, a picnic pavilion is available for group outings from 20 up to 300 people. In 2006, a new pavilion opened above the right-field wall over the Sea Dogs bullpen. Modeled after the Green Monster seats at Fenway Park in Boston, it seats up to 393 people and gives fans an opportunity to catch a home run ball. Currently all games are carried on a network of radio stations with Mike Antonellis providing the play-by-play, with the flagship WVAE/WBAE and select TV games on NESN with Eric Frede play-by-play and former Red Sox relief pitcher Ken Ryan.
Sea Dogs games are frequented by the team's official mascot Slugger the Sea Dog.
Read more about Portland Sea Dogs: History, Notable Alumni, Current Roster, Season Records, Playoffs
Famous quotes containing the words portland, sea and/or dogs:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Why is it we never get our bad medicine in small doses?”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. First Sea Lord (Laurence Naismith)
“I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be a fool with a heart, than Jupiter Olympus with his head. The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)