What better way to kick off a season than a Sunday doubleheader? The Glacier Pilots and Bucs (both of Anchorage for you newcomers) had the right idea when they booked this home/away twin billing to start the summer. I have to admit that I wavered a bit about whether or not I should make this [...]

On Tuesday I made it out to see the Oilers one last time when they came up to play the Miners in Palmer. The Miners ended up taking the game by a score of 5-2. At that time it was an important win for them, and one that must have stung for the Oilers, though [...]

The game last night between the Oilers and the Miners was another one of those where the weather was chilly, but the bats were hot. The teams combined for 12 runs on 16 hits. The weather report said 55F but I don’t believe it. The wind was blowing in from straight-away center which might have [...]

The Miners have been on the road for a long, long time. I live in Palmer and haven’t had a good enough excuse to go in to Anchorage lately, so you can imagine my excitement that I can finally attend a game here in my own ‘hood. And it couldn’t have been a better day [...]

We’re about 3/4 through the ABL season and I’ve finally seen the Oilers. This game was a blowout — 12-2 in favor of the Oilers — and I decided to focus most of my attention on pitching. Why? For one thing, there were a lot of scouts in the crowd. Scouts have radar guns. I [...]

As I mentioned in today’s Odds & Ends post, this was the fire true AIA home game of the year, and the first ever Alaska Baseball League game held in Chugiak or the Eagle River area. Considering this historic event occurred about 30 minutes from my place, I figured I’d better load up the van [...]

What I just witnessed was the strangest game of baseball I’ve ever seen in this league, and perhaps in any league, including possibly Little League. Before I start pulling apart this can of worms, I’ll give you the important line: by a score of 3-1, the AIA Fire defeated the Mat-Su Miners…maybe. Now, where the [...]

My scouting report for this game is going to be very brief tonight, as I didn’t get a whole lot of either. You see, I took my three daughters — the oldest five years old, and the youngest two are twins of nearly two — while momma was out running errands, which meant I didn’t [...]

This post is way overdue! Part of the reason is that it went 11 innings long — although at 2 1/2 hours it was merely an average game, time-wise — and I took pretty thorough scouting notes. I took these notes live via my Twitter feed, which is kind of becoming my standard practice. However, [...]

At 10:00 p.m. on Saturday began a game known as the Summer Solstice Showdown, a match between the Miners and Pilots similar to the Goldpanners’ fabled Midnight Sun Game in that it goes past midnight and on in to the next morning. Despite Anchorage’s relatively lower latitude requiring the use of artificial lights to get [...]

Last night was a summer solstice twin billing at Mulcahy Stadium: four teams, two games, baseball all night, with the first clash of the evening featuring the visiting San Diego Waves against the Anchorage Bucs. It was a back-and-forth contest with the Waves striking first, but ultimately the Bucs managed to take the lead for [...]

Last night’s continuation of the Pilots/Bucs feud was a wet and chilly one. But while the weather was cool (about 50-55 degrees with wind), the bats were hot at Mulcahy Stadium. Following an afternoon downpour, the field was deemed dry enough to proceed, but not without some water-induced antics early in the game. Paul Moeller [...]

As promised, here are my favorite photos from the June 8th game, Pilots at Miners, at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer, Alaska. These are just a few of the ones that turned out…you can see the whole gallery here. As always, bloggers, fans, teams, whatever are welcome to use these photos IF you credit 49thstatehardball.com [...]

I finally caught a ballgame! It’s been a long, long off-season for me and I felt those familiar butterflies on the way to the ballpark to see the Pilots take on the Mat-Su Miners. I was planning to see the inverse of this match-up in Anchorage on Tuesday, but the game was rained out, so [...]