‘I’m sure there’s one in here someplace,’ he says, leafing slowly through an issue he has found on the back seat. ‘There almost always is.’ ‘What? What are you looking for?’ third baseman Kevin Rochefort asks, peering over Matt’s shoulder as Matt leafs past the week’s celebs, barely giving them a look. ‘The breast-examination ad,’ Matt explains. ‘You can’t see everything, but you can see quite a lot. Here it is!’ He holds the magazine up triumphantly.

Four other heads, each wearing a red Bangor West baseball cap, immediately cluster around the magazine. For a few minutes, at least, baseball is the furthest thing from these boys’ minds. The 1989 Maine State Little League Championship Tournament begins on August 3, just over four weeks after All-Star play began for the teams involved. The state is divided into five districts, and all five send teams to Old Town, where this year’s tourney is to be held. The participants are Yarmouth, Belfast, Lewiston, York, and Bangor West. All the teams but Belfast are bigger than the Bangor West All-Stars, and Belfast is supposed to have a secret weapon. Their number one pitcher is this year’s tourney wunderkind.

The naming of the tourney wunderkind is a yearly ceremony, a small tumor that seems to defy all attempts to remove it. This boy, who is anointed Kid Baseball whether he wants the honor or not, finds himself in a heretofore unsuspected spotlight, the object of discussion, speculation, and, inevitably, wagering. He also finds himself in the unenviable position of having to live up to all sorts of pretournament hype. A Little League tournament is a pressure situation for any kid.

When you get to Tourney Town and discover you have somehow become an instant legend as well, it’s usually too much.

This year’s object of myth and discussion is Belfast’s southpaw Stanley Sturgis.