Going to Alaska for the first time in my life finally allowed me to honestly say that the game of baseball has now taken me to all four corners of the country, from Maine (Triple A) to San Diego, to Miami and finally, to Fairbanks, Alaska. Some reflections from the trip…
Strike One: We’ve all noticed all the attention being given to athletes like Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, who has already signed endorsement deals worth almost a million dollars (according to his head coach Nick Saban), and to the renewed talk about pending conference realignment that has begun again with the news that Texas and Oklahoma (surprise!) are ready to bolt the Big 12. Almost all of the conversation around college sports these days centers around money. Lots of it.
That’s really unfortunate, because that’s never what collegiate sports is supposed to be about. But even the sports that don’t generate tons of revenue for their schools – like baseball – are increasingly treating players like the professional leagues do – like commodities rather than students.
Example: I’ve been coaching a player this summer who plays baseball at a Mountain West school. He’s a very good player who’d be a valuable asset to any team he’s on. Unfortunately, the school where he’s played the past three seasons no longer values him.
As we were heading for our gate at DIA for the start of our road trip to Fairbanks, we happened to run into a member of that school’s coaching staff. When the coach and the player met face to face, the coach confirmed what the player had been suspecting for several weeks (but hadn’t yet been formally told.) The school was no longer going to honor his scholarship and suggested he enter the overcrowded transfer portal.
Keep in mind that this player had done absolutely nothing wrong off the field, and his academic standing was in perfect order. The coaches had no other reason other than their evaluation of his production on the field on which to base the decision to strip away the scholarship he been promised when he was recruited – to be a student-athlete.
It shouldn’t be this way. Players who get recruited and sign on with a particular college or university for any team should be given the guarantee that they’ll get the opportunity to earn a degree from that school over the next four years. Regardless of the sport, how many coaches sit down in a player’s living room and honestly tell the player and his family that the offer the player is getting from them is on a “year-to-year” basis?
It’s been almost a decade now since the NCAA approved a plan that allowed schools to guarantee student athletes that their athletic scholarships would be honored for a full four years rather than year by year. When the NCAA caved into public pressure in the middle of the decade and began to include “cost of living” stipends in athletic scholarships, the four-year scholarship part was also mandated in some sports. Unscrupulous football coaches like Saban, who had been “over signing” players as a normal practice (and then cutting his weakest ones loose during the summer months in order to get back down to the 85-man limit) didn’t like it much, but it was the right thing to do. It just didn’t go far enough.
It didn’t reach into the dugouts.
In truth, college baseball scholarships aren’t worth that much, anyway. Each program is allowed less than 12 full scholarships per season to split among players on a 35 (or more) man roster. This particular player isn’t losing out on all that much financial aid and will very likely end up in at least as good if not a better situation. However, many others in similar predicaments won’t, and it’s a damn shame that college baseball coaches are still allowed to treat players like pieces of meat and not like college students.
Strike Two: Before there was the Cape Cod summer league (with all of its east coast media attention) and now powerful Northwoods League, Alaska ruled summer college baseball. Yes, Alaska.
The Alaska Baseball League has a rich tradition. Teams like the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, the Peninsula Oilers in Kenai, and the Goldpanners in Fairbanks have been playing during the summer months since the mid-1970’s. The allure of venturing into the land of the midnight sun has drawn collegians – like Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson and Barry Bonds just to name a few – up from the “lower 48” from the outset of the league, making those summer teams some of the best in the nation. Teams from the ABL have won the National Baseball Congress national title 17 times since 1969.
Baseball isn’t the first thing people think about when you mention Alaska, but it’s a big deal once you’re there. Crowds in excess of 1,500 attend games (including one of our six games in Fairbanks) several times during the summer. Teams are promoted heavily (picture a minor league game, with mascots, between innings promotion and the like) and they even have a request number of loudmouth hecklers. It’s the only game in town, and fans treat it that way.
Of course, the biggest deal is the annual “Midnight Sun Game,” played on June 21st every year. The game starts at 10:30pm local time and is played without lights. That’s because it doesn’t get dark that particular day in Fairbanks, Alaska. At all. There are lights there in Growden Memorial Park, but they don’t get used. In fact, one member of the Goldpanners organization speculated that they haven’t been turned on in so long that they no longer even work.
We spent a full week in Fairbanks, stayed out late several of those nights, and never saw darkness. Dusk conditions, ya. Darkness, no. In July.
There are most definitely things about summer in Alaska (such as it never getting dark at night) that take a lot of getting used to. It’s got to be even more of an adjustment for the players on the home team (not to mention the folks that live there all year ‘round and get the reverse – little to no daylight at all – in the middle of winter) who have to navigate being that far away from home and all the changes in routine that go with it. But they still come, and they still play baseball at a very high level and the fans are still wildly entertained. It’s all good.
The overall quality of the teams isn’t what it once was, because the young talent is now spread out around the country (there are more than a dozen teams playing in just the metro Denver area alone this summer) more than it ever was. But as a college student athlete, the experience itself is worth the trip.
Strike Three: Before we left on our flight to Fairbanks, we wondered aloud what the playing field itself would be like. It seemed to make the most sense that a team based in western extension of the Great White North would have an artificial turf playing surface, right? I mean who wants to try to keep a grass field in prime playing condition during those frigid cold (think minus 30 on a regular basis) months?
Growden was opened in 1960. Astroturf was invented about five years later. Evidently, the thought process regarding an artificial surface was along those lines too because the infield was resurfaced sometime after 1970. Problem is that very same old Astroturf – not the more modern versions (like Field Turf) that are used today – remains in place today. It’s the exact same surface McGwire, Johnson, Bonds and many others played on when they were Goldpanners back in early 1980’s. The outfield grass is barren and worn out too, and weeds are all over the place. The entire place is in dreadful shape.
Alaska (and everyone else) lost the 2020 season and most of this off season during the COVID shutdown, so field maintenance wasn’t on the top of this season’s to-do list. Just getting a solid team put together (and they did) was enough of a task. Team officials are promising a better conditioned field in 2022. But anything short of a total makeover – complete with new field turf on the entire playing surface and upgrades everywhere else – doesn’t do the team or the Alaska league justice.
Here’s an idea that I’m going to push on Major League Baseball: Each season they’ve been playing a regular season game in an unusual or even MLB-created venue. They built a new field at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. Played at the College World Series in Omaha. This year, MLB is producing a new big league caliber playing field at the Field of Dreams location in rural Iowa. That game between the White Sox and the Yankees is in a couple of weeks. What if, in the future, MLB schedules say the Seattle Mariners vs. the Oakland A’s to play in the Midnight Sun game in Fairbanks? MLB could go in, bulldoze the existing Growden Field and build a brand new facility that the Goldpanners and the ABL can use moving forward for the future growth of baseball in Alaska? How cool would be to see an actual MLB game played at 10:30pm (that would be 12:30am Mountain Time) without lights?
Alaska is a totally and unique experience for anyone who visits, and for baseball people in particular. If it’s not on your bucket list, it should be.