Baseball DIY

Pop quiz: Which state has produced the fewest Major League Baseball players? Give yourself a hearty huzzah if you said “Alaska,” which is the birthplace of just nine major leaguers, including the Red Sox’s Curt Schilling. Granted, it’s only been a member of the Union since 1959, but so has Hawaii; thirty major leaguers were born in Hawaii, still disproportionately more than Alaska when you factor in the states’ populations.

So are we to conclude that there just isn’t any good baseball played above the 54th parallel? That would be a mistake. You see, players like Tom Seaver, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Dave Winfield, and even one-time Cardinals ace Bob Tewksbury have all run the bases of the Alaska Baseball League.

Have you ever heard of the Alaska Baseball League? My guess is you haven’t, unless you subscribe to an Alaskan newspaper or read Baseball America cover-to-cover every month. The ABL is a wood-bat summer league for college players (good to know college players can get at least some experience with a wooden bat) comprising six teams: the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks, the 2005 league champions; the Mat-Su Miners; the Peninsula Oilers; the Anchorage Bucs; the Anchorage Pilots; and Athletes in Action, which is a touring team out of Ohio that uses Fairbanks as its headquarters. That the league plays during the summer, when MLB and the St. Louis Unions are in action, is just one more reason that it gets little if any publicity in the contiguous 48. The teams play about 35 games against league opponents, as well as playing teams that venture up to Alaska for a quick nine…Hmmm, could this be a possible road trip for Lincolns’ Lads in the future? Summer temperatures in Alaska usually reach the seventies and occasionally hit the eighties, so get that picture of fans huddled up next to each other in parkas out of your head. Fans show up by the hundreds (sometimes thousands) to enjoy the closest thing to professional baseball they’re likely to see until MLB puts a team there, which will happen right after the Cubs win another World Series. That is to say, it won’t happen.

What really distinguishes the ABL is that, for all intents and purposes, there are no “night” games. Through a combination of Alaska’s location on the globe, the earth’s revolution around the sun, and the good graces of the Alaskan weathermen, sunlight extends well into the evening and early morning during the summer months. Games that start at seven o’clock end in daylight that lasts well after the final at-bat.

The Goldpanners, in particular, have capitalized on this round-the-clock natural lighting. Located in Fairbanks, which is just 160 miles from the Arctic Circle, the Goldpanners play their Midnight Baseball Classic every year around the summer solstice (June 21 or 22), the longest day of the year. The Panners held their first Midnight Baseball Classic in 1960, but there has been a midnight game in Fairbanks every year since 1906, when it began as the result of a wager between two competing taverns (I was unable to confirm whether these taverns were named “Cheers” and “Gary’s,” but it seems probable). The game starts at 10:30 pm, when the sun is “setting” in the north, and by the time the game ends the next morning, the sun is rising…in the north. Play is stopped at the half-inning nearest midnight for the singing of the Alaska Flag Song. The Goldpanners claim that “never once has artificial lighting been used for this unique event, and never has the game been postponed or delayed because of darkness.”

In fact, the 100th Midnight Sun game took place June 21, 2005, when the Goldpanners faced the Omaha Strike Zone from Nebraska. Four-thousand fans watched as the Goldpanners beat the Zone, 3-1. Panners pitcher Sean Timmons took the win, which made him the winningest pitcher (3-0) in Midnight Sun history. His jersey and hat from the game are now on display in Cooperstown.

So, if you’ve got nothing else to do on June 21, 2006, maybe you should head on up to Fairbanks, Alaska, to watch some potential major leaguers knock the ball around way past your bedtime. Or, if you really need a full night’s sleep and would rather stay closer to home, just take the Alaskan Baseball League as another reminder that, no matter what the latitude, baseball truly is a nation-wide pastime.