Barry and Jean Bomboy thought they had an empty nest when their youngest child, Kathy, 23, got married and moved out. Instead, they get new family members every summer when the Aberdeen IronBirds season begins, and they take in minor league players for free as a host family.
“My parents always said they were going to get foster kids, but instead they got ballplayers,” Kathy Bomboy said.
The Bomboys have hosted players every year since the team?s inaugural season in 2002 and still keep in touch with them.
They live with the players in a three-bedroom apartment above their 28-year-old candy shop on Market Street in Havre de Grace.
“We feel like adopted parents,” said Barry Bomboy, 52. “When we go to the games, we?re really rooting for them to do their best.”
He said players are usually around for about 40 days and on the road for the rest of the 70-game season.
Players, generally in their early 20s, are away from their regular homes. They come from all across the country for a shot at making it some day to the big leagues. The IronBirds are a farm team for the Orioles.
Host families are there to give them rides, make them food and talk after a bad game, said Jo Ann Reynolds, the office coordinator who runs the program. All IronBirds except four or five stay with host families, she said.
“They couldn?t make it if they didn?t,” she said.
The team?s general manager said they?re paid about $1,000 a month.
“It?s not out of the ordinary in baseball for guys to stay with other families,” IronBirds outfielder Bobby Andrews, 22, said about the minor league tradition. “It goes back a while.
“A lot of guys like to get their own apartments, because it?s hard to find a good family.”
But he is sticking with his family, the Stiflers again after last year.
“You spend a little more at the grocery story, but I wouldn?t call it a financial burden,” said Terry Stifler, 48, who works in an elementary school and whose husband owns a construction company.
Andrews said players sometimes complain that families are too strict. But he likes the convenience of living with a host family after being on the road. The Stiflers ? who have a son in the minor leagues living with a host family in Rochester, N.Y. ? gave him a key to their house and let him borrow their car.
