They pick up bats, helmets, catching equipment, and stuff everything into canvas duffel bags. By the time they’ve got it over to Dave’s old green pick-up truck, some of them are laughing again.

Dave laughs with them, but he doesn’t do any laughing on the ride home. Tonight the ride seems long. ‘I don’t know if we can beat them on Saturday,’ he says on the way back. He is speaking in that same reflective tone of voice. ‘I want to, and they want to, but I just don’t know. Hampden’s got mo on their side, now.’

Mo, of course, is momentum – that mythic force which shapes not only single games but whole seasons. Baseball players are quirky and superstitious at every level of play, and for some reason the Bangor West players have adopted a small plastic sandal – a castoff of some young fan’s baby doll – as their mascot. They have named this absurd talisman Mo. They stick it in the chain-link fence of the dugout at every game, and batters often touch it furtively before stepping into the on-deck circle. Nick Trzaskos, who ordinarily plays left field for Bangor West, has been entrusted with Mo between games. Tonight, for the first time, he forgot to bring the talisman.

‘Nick better remember Mo on Saturday,’ Dave says grimly. ‘But even if he remembers…‘ He shakes his head. ‘I just don’t know.’

There is no admission charge to Little League games; the charter expressly forbids it. Instead, a player takes around a hat during the fourth inning, soliciting donations for equipment and field maintenance. On Saturday, when Bangor West and Hampden square off in the year’s final Penobscot County Little League game, at Bangor, one can judge the growth of local interest in the team’s fortunes by a simple act of comparison. The collection taken up at the Bangor-Millinocket contest was $15.45; when the hat finally comes back in the fifth inning of the Saturday-afternoon game against Hampden, it’s overflowing with change and crumpled dollar bills. The total take is $94.25. The bleachers are full; the fences are lined; the parking lot is full.