Heroes of the Diamond: A Throwback to Alaska's Baseball Roots

In recent seasons, the ABL schedule has been augmented by exhibition games against independent and traveling collegiate teams such as the Yuba Gold Sox and the S.L.O. Blues. This season will bring something a little different, something reminiscent of the earliest days of Alaskan baseball, before the ABL as we know it today was even conceivable.

In 2010, ABL teams will square off against none other than the Heroes of the Diamond, formerly known as the US Military All-Stars. The Heroes of the Diamond, sporting their trademark camouflage uniforms, will make a whirlwind tour of games against ABL teams. The grand finale in the Alaska leg of the team's 100-game worldwide barnstorming tour (which includes several exhibitions against Major and Minor-league professional clubs) is a match-up against the Goldpanners in the annual Midnight Sun Game in Fairbanks on June 21st.

But this isn't the first time teams made up of servicemen have taken the field in Alaska. The Military Stars' tour is a throwback of sorts to the early days of Alaskan baseball. During World War II and the Cold War, Alaska's strategic location resulted in a relatively enormous expansion of military forces in the state. Bases sprung up all over the last frontier, and with them came baseball.



The Goldpanners, the oldest and most storied team of Alaska baseball, got its start in this tradition. Red Boucher, the man who founded the club, came to Fairbanks after his own long career in the Navy which included playing ball in base leagues overseas. Boucher -- at that point a sporting goods salesman -- would enter his Panners squad in the local military league for several seasons before proving successful enough to earn an invitation to the NBC World Series.

In those early days, before the Panners could draw enough college players north to fill their roster (this was before it was known as collegiate summer ball, something Boucher and the Panners would invent practically singlehandedly) the team was filled out with soldiers and airmen, as well as working stiffs from around town. It was in this fashion that the beginning of today's Alaska League sprouted from the fertile baseball soil of the state's military presence.

While to those of us who are newer Alaska League converts the sight of our favorite teams squaring off against a squad of players who've traded one uniform for another might seem a little different, the oldtimers in the crowd might remember a day when that was how Alaskan ball was played. A time before the league itself even existed. In a sense, these exhibition games are a tribute to the deepest roots of the ball clubs that you and I love today.