I ran into Hank Burns at the Oxford Hills-Cony baseball game Thursday at Morton Field in Augusta and had a nice conversation with the former Vikings coach. Burns, who wrote a column for the Sunday Telegram (which later became a harness racing column) has always been a character.

But first and foremost, he was a top-notch baseball coach. He reminded me of the excellent rivalry Cony has always had with Oxford Hills. Cony benefited from a strong wind on Thursday that knocked down a couple of potential Viking home runs to preserve a 3-2 win for the Rams. Burns recalled a similar game in Augusta in which Jon Ladd pitched for Oxford Hills and a strong wind kept some Cony shots in the ballpark.
“His fastball was about 60 miles an hour,” Burns joked.
Burns, who finished as head coach in 1985, matched wits against Cony coach Jeff Trundy during those years. Trundy, who is from South Paris, even had a relative — starting pitcher Dillon Trundy — on Thursday’s Oxford Hills team.
Mike Loveless took over for Burns and the rivalry never missed a beat. In addition to playing for a number of conference championships, the teams met for the state title in 1990. Cony won that 10-5 and also won the following year while the Vikings captured a state title in 2005. Shane Slicer, who played for Loveless, has been the Vikings coach the past several years and has continued the strong tradition of competition and sportsmanship between the two schools.