LYNN — What started out as an interest for Paul Hartford at the age of 10 has turned into a full-blown passion. He is, at the moment, Mr. Lynn Little League.
“At an early age I absolutely loved baseball,” says Hartford. “So when I got to a certain age, in my third year playing, I was actually playing and then coaching a young team.
“I never wanted kids to not be able to play because there weren’t enough people to coach,” he said.
Hartford has been associated with the Little League for over 51 years and has coached with an ever-growing list of peers. He currently is managing East Lynn’s Little League alongside Coaches Arnaldo Velazquez, Jomar Torres, and Ryan Gendron.
Past coaches include (some of whose names should be pretty familiar to Lynn baseball people): Andy O’shea, Bill Sonny, Bob Whitcher, Brendan Mageary, Chris Warren, Dave Galeazzi, David Dorgan, Dick Champa, Dick Donahue, Frank Colella, Frank Perry, Jason Bullock, Jeff Earp, John Smith, John Titus, Junior Martinez, Kevin Hartford, Larry Donahue, Lyle Hartford, Mark Sullivan Matt Griffin, Pedro Morales Richard W. Doherty, Rich Cowell, Rick Anderson, Russ Meade, Stever Archer, Steve Leblanc, Tom Bryne, and Tony Zaffiro.
Hartford started his career at West Lynn American and everything else just seemed to follow.
“I started at West Lynn American for a couple of years. Then a couple of kids moved on to Babe Ruth so, I moved on to Babe Ruth and took on that challenge. I coached at Babe Ruth for a few years then there was the opportunity to coach Big League Ball which doesn’t exist anymore,” said Hartford.
“Then I reached out to West Lynn National and started coaching there. After a few years I got the opportunity to coach college.
I actually moved to Kansas and coached out there,” he said. “When I came back in 2007, West Lynn Nationals was gone and the leagues had gotten so much smaller. So I reached out to Lynn Shore and started coaching there. In 2018 I thought I was going to retire but I moved back up to Babe Ruth. Then went back to Lynn Shore who then merged with East Lynn. So, that’s why I am now — in East Lynn.”
With coaching four of Lynn’s leagues, writing the book History of Lynn City Series, and all his years of coaching, the thing that is most important to kids on the teams is patience.
“Patience and taking or accepting constructive criticism as well as working hard,” he said. “Baseball is a hard game. If they don’t get it, that’s okay.”
However, deciding on a favorite moment was a little bit harder to answer.
“It’s hard to pick one highlight and you’re talking to a guy who remembers them all and it’s hard to pick just one. If I had to pick one highlight, it would have to be finally winning the (City Series) 2016 championship. It was the first championship that I was truly in the dugout for. We went undefeated in the regular season and then undefeated to win the championship.”