This isn't Iowa; it's heaven for Red Sox fans

In Corinna, Maine, as in most of Vacationland, locals say they eat and breathe the Red Sox.

So it is only natural that Charlie Peavey is turning 5 acres of maize on his 60-acre vegetable farm into a maze commemorating the team's 2004 World Championship season.

If he builds it, he hopes, they will come -- and get lost.

Starting Aug. 13 and until Halloween, fans can pay $7 and venture inside the design of 12-foot-high corn stalks with bases, the team logo, and ''World Series Champions 2004" meticulously sketched (with weed killer) into a green swath of Peavey's Thunder Road Farm 37 miles west of Bangor.

Yesterday, Peavey was also installing a 16-foot piece of plywood on what will become a miniature Green Monster for wiffle ball games.

It is believed to be the first time that the Sox symbol has been used in a corn maze. Granted, it won't be visible from the ground or from within its confusing confines, but Peavey is sure it's going to be a hit. Last summer, his lobster maze drew 8,000 people.

''Farming is a gamble, just like anything in life," he said yesterday. ''This is an added amount of money for this Red Sox logo, but we thought about it long and hard. . . . Everyone said people will talk about this for years to come."

Peavey, 52, has been raising vegetables for 30 years. But with the price of fuel and other essentials rising, farmers like him can make only so much money off an acre.

Enter ''agri-tainment" and The Maize of Spanish Fork, Utah, a company which contracts with Peavey and other farmers nationwide to design, market, and make corn mazes to help their bottom lines and allow them to become less reliant on fluctuating crop prices. The maze service costs Peavey $1,500 annually, and the company gets 6 percent of the profits.

Residents of Corinna, population 2,145, profit as well. Peavey hires 10 to 15 teenagers and four adults to run the maze and nearby concessions. Local businesses benefit from visitors, including school groups coming from more than 100 miles away, he said.

The lobster maze typically took 45 minutes to navigate. This year's Red Sox maze, like the team's long championship quest, is expected to average a little longer -- about an hour and a half.

Peavey said he could have used a moose or a bear design. And the Red Sox symbol was a bit of a hassle. Major League Baseball officials made him cut out a trademark symbol under the Sox logo. And everything they issue with the logo has to be approved by a board in New York, which recently forced Peavey to spend 25 cents more on $1 coupons because the MLB logo wasn't red, white, and blue.

Asked whether it was worth it, Peavey said, ''I'm going to find out."

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.