The baseball record of Marty Roop arcs a good portion of the state, from Millinocket to Bowdoin College to Lisbon Falls, and spans a career that carved a lasting niche at each stop along the way.
Marty grew up in Millinocket and played third base for Stearns High School under legendary coach George Wentworth. Roop, a three-sport athlete, and his Minutemen were Eastern Maine Class A champions in 1954, losing to Stephens High of Rumford in the state title game.
Roop was a three-year letterman in football as well as a two-year starting pitcher at Bowdoin College under the fabled Deacon Danny MacFayden. Marty’s contribution to college life extended well beyond the diamond, serving as Class President and demonstrating an unswerving commitment to his fellow Polar Bears, a quality for which he was later recognized as a “Foot Soldier for Bowdoin” by his classmates for his ongoing dedication to organizing class reunions.
Following his graduation from Bowdoin in 1958, Marty, married and with three children, settled in Lisbon and resumed his baseball career with the Lisbon Merchants of the Andy County League. He was out of the state, and baseball, for the next four years, but upon his return, played one more season for the Merchants before catching on with a rejuvenated Lisbon entrant to the league, the Roberts 88’ers, named for Roberts Pharmacy, the team’s sponsor, which was founded in 1888. Roop pitched and caught for the 88’ers from 1964 through 1969, winning the Auburn Twilight League every year during that span and the State Yankee Amateur Baseball Congress in 1964 and 1965. Roop pitched a shutout and drove in two runs in a 3-0 win over Dixfield in the 1964 state final and went on to post a 3-1 win over Connecticut in the regional tournament where the 88’ers finished second overall.
Bolstered by Roop and his pitching mate, Bob Baumer, the thunderous bats of Dave Begos, Stan Doughty (MBHOF ’09), and George Ferguson (MBHOF ’10), and the slick fielding of Dick Pohle, the Lisbon 88’ers were the equal of any Maine town team during their heyday in the mid-1960’s.
Though Marty’s active playing career ended after the 1969 season, he and fellow Hall of Famer Stan Doughty were instrumental in organizing the Lisbon Little League which counted over 100 youngsters playing ball throughout the summer. Stan and Marty coached Little League for two years before moving on to manage the Coombs Montfort Post American Legion team for five more seasons.
More recently, Marty coached ten years in a fifth- and sixth-grade basketball program in Lisbon and helped in the organization of several adult sports programs in town.
Marty and his wife Mary Jane are the proud parents of four children and can boast of ten grandchildren and two great-grandsons. That’s a total of sixteen sets of ears to hear the inspiring baseball legacy of Marty Roop.
https://dailysun.bowdoin.edu/2011/04/profile-charles-marty-roop-%E2%80%9958-bowdoin-magazine/
