Alaska Baseball

Living in Wichita, I became acquainted, through the NBC Tournament, with teams from Alaska, most memorably the Anchorage Glacier Pilots (I believe Darren Dreifort played on their team.) When I told Bob Lutz I was going to be here, he mentioned that one of his bucket list items is to come to one of these games.  So we decided to go to one so Bob could attend a game vicariously.

We had wanted to attend the game in Palmer yesterday, but car troubles precluded that. Instead, we went to the 3:00 game between the Fairbanks Goldpanners and Chugiak Chinooks.

I had read about Mulcahy Field, and though I thought I knew what to expect, I was 100% wrong. The field was built in the 1960's, and it was very much Old School.

First, it was much smaller than I expected.  I thought it might be similar to Lawrence Dumont, but it was not at all.  It was more similar to some of the ball fields that might be found in a small Kansas town.  Since the field is only used for summer ball, it makes sense that it is small . . . I just hadn't thought of it that way.

After we went through the "gates" and paid our $5, we noticed that the stairs were made of 4 x 4 pieces of lumber.  As a matter of fact, the whole stadium was made of 4 x 4 pieces of lumber.  Each row of seating had wooden railings on which we could lean.  It was a very fun look, and it certainly has not been upgraded to current code.  On each base side, there are only four rows of seats, though behind the plate, there are more.

Millions of sunflower seed shells covered the floor around the seats.  I don't think they clean the stands like they do the concrete ones of the current era.  I suspect someone might pick up the trash, but the sunflower seeds must just hang around.

I was disappointed by the lack of people in the stands.  There may have been 50.  I finally found out why . . . these two teams were not the home teams.  The 7:00 p.m. game between the two Anchorage teams would be close to full, I was assured.

Field turf on the infield did not seem unusual, nor did the wear and tear in the outfield.  But the weeds and dry dirt on the warning track caused some interesting hops to the ball and some difficult plays for the outfielders.

What really surprised me was the fact that the field had lights.  Why do they need lights in the Land of the Midnight Sun?  Tonight, it finally got dark at 10:30.  The game started at 7:00, so maybe towards the end of the game, they may have needed the light.  But for most of the summer, I cannot imagine they did.

While we were in the stands, I checked to see if any Kansans were playing.  In tonight's game two WSU players were on the Glacier Pilots' team (Micah Green is one!).  Two K-Staters (R J Santigate is one) play for the Mat-Su Miners.  And one player from Wichita who attends Neosho County was here.  But no Kansans were on the teams we were watching.

Although I would not have thought of going to a game before Bob mentioned it, Di and I are both glad we were there.  We were able to experience baseball at a different level, and we enjoyed baseball in the Land of the Midnight Sun.