Oct. 4, 1992: Portland is granted an Eastern League minor league baseball expansion team. The Portland Sea Dogs begin playing April 7, 1994, as a double-A affiliate of the Florida Marlins. They make the playoffs for the first time in 1995.
In 2003 the team becomes a Boston Red Sox affiliate. The team wins the Eastern League championship in 2006, defeating the Akron Aeros (now called the Akron RubberDucks). It is Maine’s first professional baseball championship in 91 years, and it comes at the expense of the team that beat the Sea Dogs in the championship series in 2005.
The Sea Dogs play their home games at Hadlock Field in Portland.
Patrick Dempsey hugs his mother, Amanda Dempsey, whose struggle with cancer inspired him to establish The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing in Lewiston. Courtesy The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer, Hope & Healing
Oct. 4, 2009: The Dempsey Challenge, an annual bicycle ride held to support Lewiston’s Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope and Healing, debuts at Simard-Payne Police Memorial Park in Lewiston. Participants ride 10, 25, 50 or 100 miles, or run or walk 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) to collect fundraising pledges for the center. The event roster is capped at 3,500 participants, who raise more than $1 million.
Actor Patrick Dempsey, who rides 50 miles that day, and his sister, Mary, founded the cancer center the previous year to help the area where they grew up. They did so in response to the experience of their mother, Amanda, who was diagnosed with cancer in 1997, was treated in Lewiston, and eventually dies from cancer in 2014.
Joseph Owen is an author, retired newspaper editor and board member of the Kennebec Historical Society. Owen’s book, “This Day in Maine,” can be ordered at islandportpress.com. To get a signed copy use promo code signedbyjoe at checkout. Joe can be contacted at: jowen@mainetoday.com.
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