For a North Devon baseball fan, a trip to Maine turned into something much bigger.

John Lewis, who plays for the Torrington Riptides, was invited to throw the ceremonial first pitch for Minor League team the Portland Sea Dogs after a friend told the club how often he had travelled to watch them.

Lewis said he threw the pitch in front of 20,000 people at the club’s Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field before the Sea Dogs’ game against the Somerset Patriots.

He told the BBC the “really big surprise” had been set up by a friend of his in Portland and said it was a “great honour” to throw the pitch.

Lewis said he was nervous because he is not a pitcher, but described it as “definitely a highlight of 30 years of watching the Sea Dogs”.

He said: “When you play amateur baseball in a small community team like the Riptides, you don’t ever expect to be standing on the pitcher’s mound in a proper American baseball stadium.

“I brought my Riptides player’s jersey so I could wear it to a Sea Dogs game, I never thought I’d get to walk out on the field in it.”

Lewis said the Sea Dogs are part of the Boston Red Sox franchise, which has won the World Series nine times, and said the player he threw the ball to was “potentially a future player in the major leagues”.

He said he fell in love with baseball after watching a game while on a summer camp after finishing sixth form college.

Lewis said the game is “really family orientated” and “really interactive with the fans”.

Riptides player-manager Jess Cooper said the rest of the club were “all a bit jealous”.

“It’s an amazing experience, and this is definitely a highlight of the year for the whole team,” Cooper said.

“Great Torrington is the last place in the world you’d expect to find a baseball team, we’re a really small team and we’ve been going less than two years, so for John to get up there and represent North Devon on a big stage like that is a really big deal.”

Read more from BBC News.