Two former University of Maine baseball standouts who still own school records, shortstop Brian Seguin from Lewiston and pitcher Mike Collar from Scarborough, headline the list of 11 people who will be inducted later this year into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame.
The others are Auburn’s Jeff Benson, Gorham’s Jeff Desjardins, Cherryfield’s Fred Kneeland, Milton “Mac” MacBride Sr. of Easton, Winthrop’s Keith Morang, Garrett Olson of Norway, Lewiston’s Ron Plourde, Waterville’s Fran Purnell and Winslow’s Robin Weed.
MacBride and Purnell will be inducted posthumously.
The induction ceremony will take place on Oct. 26 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland.
Seguin was a two-time All-ECAC shortstop at UMaine who still has four Black Bear records.
He has the records for most hits in a season (91), most singles (74) and longest hitting streak (27), all of which were set in 1990. In 1991, he played in a school-record 66 games.
UMaine won a school-record 48 games in 1991 and reached the championship round of the NCAA Northeast Regional in Orono where the Black Bears lost to Clemson 13-5.
In 1992, Seguin was UMaine’s leading hitter (.317).
The former Cape Cod League all-star is fourth all-time in consecutive games played with 161.
Collar holds the school record for career shutouts with seven and consecutive complete games in a season with eight (2002). He is tied with Billy Swift for most complete games in a season with nine that year.
He was a two-time All-America East selection and a Freshman All-American. His 98 strikeouts in 2003 are third most in school history, and his 24 career wins tied him for sixth.
He was 24-7 in his career at UMaine and was an eighth round draft pick of the Houston Astros. He pitched in the Astros organization for three seasons.
Desjardins is in his second season as head athletic trainer for the Cleveland Guardians and his 25th in the organization. He spent nine seasons at the minor league level for the Guardians before being promoted to the Major League level 16 years ago.
He is a member of the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society Executive Board.
Benson has been involved in various levels of baseball and is an active 34-year member of the Central Maine Board of Approved Umpires. He has been an assistant baseball coach at St. Joseph’s College in Standish and Bates College in Lewiston.
He has been an athletic administrator at Oxford Hills High School in South Paris and at Edward Little High School in Auburn along with stops at Lisbon and Gray-New Gloucester.
He has won five prestigious awards for athletic administration and two for umpiring.
In 2019, he was named the Maine Principals Association’s first commissioner of officials and was tasked with the chore of hiring and retaining officials in all sports. He had also been a basketball and soccer referee.
Morang is already in the University of Southern Maine’s athletic Hall of Fame after his stellar career at USM. The outfielder was a career .333 hitter with 23 homers, 140 runs scored and 43 stolen bases. He was a Division III All-American in 1987 when he hit .353 with 11 homers and 52 RBIs. He played in 126 games and the Huskies went 88-49 in his time there.
Kneeland had an exceptional career at Narraguagus High School in Harrington. He tossed four no-hitters and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 35th round in 1974. He went on to pitch in the Pirates organization for two years before returning to Cherryfield where he coached and umpired youth baseball for 30 years.
MacBride was an outstanding two-sport athlete at the University of Maine from 1933-35. He had a career batting average of .370. He hit .330 as a junior and .375 as a senior. He was also a football captain and the leading rusher one season.
Former Oxford Hills High standout Olson was a two-time NCAA Division II All-American at Franklin Pierce. In 2005, the third baseman he led the Northeast 10 in homers (11) and runs scored (57) and was third in runs batted in with 42. His slugging percentage of .625 was second best and his on-base percentage of .442 was third. He hit .375, fourth best in the league.
He was drafted in the fourth round by the Minnesota Twins organization (126th overall) and played four years in the Twins organization where he played every position except catcher.
He is currently the head baseball coach at Morse High School in Bath.
Plourde is in his 27th season as the head baseball coach at Skidmore College in New York, and he took a career record of 480-500-4 into a Friday game at Middlebury College. Plourde, who played at St. Joseph’s College in Standish and was also an assistant coach there for four years, has guided Skidmore to five conference championships and four NCAA Division III tournament berths.
He has been named the Liberty League Coach of the Year four times and nine of his teams have won at least 20 games with two of them winning 30 games.
Purnell played a vital role in the formation of Waterville Little League in 1968 and remained a driving force in Waterville youth baseball for close to five decades.
Not only was he a coach, organizer and manager, Purnell and a group of volunteers completely overhauled and upgraded the field on Matthews Avenue. It was eventually named Purnell Field, and it became an artificial turf field called the Purnell Wrigley Field.
In 2016, Waterville Mayor Nicholas Isgro, on behalf of the City Council, recognized April 23, 2016 as Fran Purnell Day during the opening ceremony of the baseball season.
Weed was one of the most successful high school coaches of all time during his 15 seasons at Winslow High School.
Weed turned the Black Raiders into one of the top programs in the state.
He compiled a career record of 208-80 and guided them to six Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B titles, four Eastern Maine B championships and a state title in 1995.
He was a six-time KVAC Coach of the Year.
