Don’t let the spring (summer?) snow storms fool you, fans of Alaska Baseball. Those sun-soaked, relatively-warm Alaskan summer days are coming our way and with it will come Alaska Baseball League baseball. A while back we previewed the 2013 Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks recruiting roster. Today let’s keep the rally going with a look at the [...]
We’ve got about a month to go until big-time baseball finally arrives in Alaska. The teams should be getting close to having their rosters set up, and several of them have published their stable of players on the web for all to see. So I’m going to go ahead and kick off the 2013 previews [...]
Robert Barr, a filmmaker who “grew up at Mulcahy Stadium”, has decided to chase his dream of telling the story of the Anchorage Glacier Pilots on screens big and small. And he’d like you to be a part of his project. In 2001, Barr followed the Pilots on what would become their most recent National [...]
Tanner Mendonca caught my eye late in the season. I filmed this video in late July last year and I was very impressed with what I saw. As you can see, Mendonca has a good repertoire of pitches. His four-seamer reaches a respectable 90-92 mph and he has a gnarly curveball in his arsenal…
The Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks made a Facebook announcement yesterday that three 2012 players have agreed to return for the 2013 season. Pitchers Drew Mitrisin and Jake Ham will join outfielder and designated hitter Casey Munoz in a return trip to Alaska. Mitrisin, the 6’1″, 175-pound left-hander out of William Jewell College had a promising [...]
Tanner Rust is a two-year Alaska Baseball League player, coming up with the Oilers in 2011 before making the move to the Bucs with GM Shawn Maltby for 2012. Rust has served primarily as a catcher in his ABL tenure but has played around the field as well. In 2011 he went to the NBC World Series with the Oilers, where he had a homer and 5 RBIs in 7 games. Check out his scouting video below:
The Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks have dug down deep to the DIII level in their recruiting for 2013, and have produced a potential gem in a Hendrix College junior outfielder known as Collin Radack. The 6’4″, 205-pounder has risen to prominence over the past few years and, consequently, has punched his ticket to Alaska. In the hierarchy of [...]
There’s a lot of voodoo involved in player-watching but timing runners with a stopwatch is one of the few pursuits I’ve found which gives you hard data. That’s why I’ve had a stopwatch with me every time I’ve gone to a game from day one at this blog. 2012 was no exception and I got [...]
The 2013 Peninsula Oilers’ roster is coming together, and the team has slowly been releasing names to the local media. James Clark, the team’s GM, has been using his Oilers Corner column in the Peninsula Clarion to feed his fans players’ names and summary background, one or two guys at a time. For the quickest [...]
Swick, the infielder out of Southern California, is a guy I really like. He’s a junior headed into the 2013 MLB Draft and I am very confident he’ll get drafted. He had four tools that I thought were above the curve. He made solid contact for average, showed some pop in his bat, and he could run and throw well. Perfect Game ranked him #17 on their 2012 Alaska top prospects list and for good reason.
#6 Michael Miller SS – 2010/11 Peninsula Oilers Bats: R – Throws: R Height: 5’8″ – Weight: 165lb 2011 School: Cal Poly SLO 2011 Class: Junior (redshirt) Hometown: Concord, California All posts regarding Michael Miller With the ABL League Leaders list released on July 3rd, about half-way through the season, who’s leading the league in [...]
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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 [...]
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The Anchorage Bucs are sending three pitchers to the 2011 MLB All-Star game this season: C.J. Wilson, Jered Weaver, and Heath Bell. The Goldpanners’ Michael Young has been chosen as the American League’s reserve D.H. as well. Bell, the right-hander with the San Diego Padres, is not a recent graduate of the Alaska League. He [...]
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#11 Brady Hohl 2011 Anchorage Glacier Pilots Bats: Right – Throws: Right Height: 6’1″ – Weight: 190lb 2011 School: University of Nebraska-Omaha 2011 Year: DII Junior All posts regarding Brady Hohl As a fan of college hockey, and particularly the UAA Seawolves, I have a natural distaste for the WCHA-rival Nebraska-Omaha, but when it comes [...]
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#23 Braden Shipley RHP/SS – 2011 Anchorage Bucs Bats: Right – Throws: Right Height: 6’2″ – Weight: 180lb 2011 School: Nevada Reno 2011 Year: DI Freshman Hometown: Medford, Oregon All posts regarding Braden Shipley The Anchorage Bucs got a good one when they recruited Braden Shipley. He can pitch a solid game. He’s got the [...]
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#21 Taylor Oldham IF – 2011 AIA Fire Bats: Right – Throws: Right Height: 6’1″ – Weight: 202lb 2011 School: Covenant College 2011 Year: DIII Junior Hometown: Orlando, Florida All posts regarding Taylor Oldham The AIA Fire went way down south to find a middle infielder during their recruiting for this phase, and found perhaps [...]
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The Alaska Baseball League regular season is now in full swing, with every team having more than a handful of official league games under their belts. With that being said, I’d like to take a break to look at who’s been the hottest teams of the season thus far…and who hasn’t. If all goes well, [...]
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Alright baseball fans. I didn’t do one of these last weekend, and I usually do them on Saturday, but here it is Sunday and it’s time to get caught up. Below I’ve got some pretty interesting tidbits of info, all kinds of good stuff that I just couldn’t write 500 words about but wanted to [...]
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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 [...]
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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, [...]
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Tonight happens to be none other than the world-famous Midnight Sun Game, in which the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks are hosting the San Diego Waves. For the second year running I’ve been unable to make the trip up to Fairbanks from Palmer, so I’m giving YOU, the FANS, the chance to have your best photos, [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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Shutouts were the order of the day on Tuesday as three separate Alaska teams blanked their opponents in Alaska Baseball League play. The abundance of lopsided play was aided by a rare four-game evening, made possible by two visiting teams who are swinging through the last frontier on road trips, both of whom were blanked [...]
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