Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

April 26

Passion for baseball takes couple back to Germany

BY DOUG HARLOW Staff Writer

SKOWHEGAN -- Jesse and Anna LaCasse met at a baseball game in Germany, where Anna lived, in 2004.

Anna worked in a clothing store and played shortstop for a women's softball team. Jesse was a player and coach for the Neunkirchen, Germany, Nightmares baseball team.

While it was the couple's love of the game of baseball that brought them together five years ago, that love now takes them back to Germany, where Jesse has been signed to play ball for the Bonn Capitals, a professional baseball team.

They left March 10 with 150 of Jesse's handmade wooden bats and plan to stay for six months, near Anna's family. The Capitals have purchased 50 of Jesse's bats and he hopes to sell the rest of them to the other teams in the Bundesliga, or professional German baseball league.

Jesse was a star baseball player for Madison High School in the late 1990s and at St. Joseph's College in Standish.

"Without baseball, we would have never met," Jesse, 30, said. "I first saw Anna while I was coaching third base. I went into the dugout and said to one of my players 'Who is that up there in the stands?'"

It was Anna.

That exchange was played out during Jesse's first visit to Germany, playing and coaching baseball for the Nightmares in 2004-05. Anna spoke very little English then, but each of them knew there was something there -- something more than baseball.

"We didn't really talk too much, but it was enough for me to say OK, I'm going to go over and visit," Anna said. "I came over just to visit. I just felt like there was something. I quit my job to come over here, because I wanted to go see him."

Anna visited Maine with four of her friends in December 2004. She stayed for two weeks and was in line at the airport to fly back to Germany when it hit here like a line drive -- she had to stay.

"We went to the airport to leave; I had everything packed and they're like 'All right, are you checking in?' and I'm like -- no -- I decided in front of that person that I was going to stay, to be with him."

They fell in love, married and have two children, Brody, 3, and Rylan, 9 months. They live on Wesserunsett Lake in East Madison and Jesse makes and markets wooden baseball bats at his shop -- LaCasse Bats -- on Water Street in Skowhegan.

Last year, Anna asked Jesse if they could return to Germany, if he was able to get another job there playing baseball. He did.

"My first choice was Bonn Capitals, which is kind of central to Anna's family," Jesse said. "That's German professional; the highest level -- Major League Baseball rules."

The average age of the players in that league is 18-25, making Jesse a veteran player at age 30.

"They hired me, another American pitcher and a player from Australia," he said. "In Germany, you're only allowed to play two foreigners per game."

LaCasse said the baseball level in German leagues is equivalent to low minor leagues in American baseball or Division I college baseball. There are seven professional leagues in Germany; the top two are strictly wooden-bat leagues.

LaCasse said he will be paid about $900 a month, plus living expenses, as a player and a coach for another local team. He said the German national baseball team also will be using 12 of his Maine-made, wooden baseball bats.

To earn a living in Maine, LaCasse installs artistic lighting in Portland and does carpentry work in Madison. His bats are sold at games and baseball tournaments during the summer and at stores in Maine, including LaCasse Shoe Repair in Skowhegan, Game Day Athletics in Manchester and on the web at www.lacassebats.com.

LaCasse bats sell for $40 to $60 for baseball and softball, depending on the wood used and the model chosen.

Anna and Jesse said there is a magic and a romance surrounding the game of baseball and that same magic translated into their return to the diamond in Germany.

"A lot of people think baseball is boring," Anna said. "We don't. When you understand the game and know the players, you come out, you make a whole day of it and it's great to watch the guys. Hitting a tiny little ball with a bat, it's almost magic."

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534

dharlow@centralmaine.com