4/24/2010 Odds & Ends

Part of the 10-day forecast for Fairbanks...
That's good enough for baseball in my book!

It's only about a month and a half until we get this shin-dig started. Word has it that local high school teams in Fairbanks have been knocking the dust out of Growden Park, so that means we're getting close. REAL close. I've already got my first five or six games penciled into the calendar, so you know I'm ready to go. But that's enough about the future, let's take a look at this past week...

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Three players have been scratched from the Anchorage Bucs' roster: Andrew Benak (Rice Sophomore), Tyler Park (McNeese State Junior) and Travis Smith (Michigan Junior). My inquiries with the Bucs regarding these players has not yielded a response as of today, so I won't speculate as to the cause of their being dropped. However, the team has also added a player to its roster: Freshman Bobby Brosnahan out of Michigan. Brosnahan is a southpaw starting pitcher who redshirted last season. When I can find out more info on these players, I'll be sure to let you know, and don't be shy if you have any.

As you may know, the Glacier Pilots are unveiling their 2010 players one-by-one on their website, and they recently announced that they've signed junior RHP Joe Sawicki out of Northern Colorado. As with the Bucs players mentioned above, I'll see if I can't dig up more info on Sawicki and write a more detailed bio/scouting report in the near future.


We still haven't seen any rosters out of the Miners or Oilers; on the Miners website team GM Pete Christopher says that he's still got four too many players because they haven't been as racked with injuries as years past. They have a 2010 roster page set up on their site, but it's completely blank and apparently ready to be filled in. My intuition is that they're waiting to shed a couple more players before they officially announce who's going to be wearing the green uni's this year. As for the Oilers, who knows?

International view:

Everyone knows that the American professional baseball hierarchy is stuffed with Alaska Leaguers, but why stop there? A former ABLer had a big impact in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (that's Republic of China, or as the rest of the world knows it, Taiwan). Shorstop Sheng-Wei Wang (Panners, 2005) drove in the only run for the Brother Elephants as they opened the CPBL season against Uni-President on Sunday. 

The Alaska League is mostly known for it's domestic talent, but it's not terribly unusual for an international prospect to use the league as a stepping stone to American pro ball. Another notable guy who fits this bill is Chen-Chang Lee (Bucs, 2007) who has thrown 10.2 innings of relief for the AA Akron Aeros of the Cleveland organization.

49th State Hardball site news:

I'm trying to get 17 more Twitter followers this week! I've been stuck in the vicinity of 183 for a couple weeks now and I really want to bust into the 200's. Are YOU following 49th State Hardball on Twitter? If not, you should be. Click this! People tell me that they think my Twitter feed is pretty kickin' rad, so please join if you do the Twitter thing.

In case you missed it, earlier this week we talked about Ike Davis' debut with the NY Mets. I covered the story as a semi-live blog all the way from the rumor of his call-up hitting the Twitter feed, through his at-bats, all the way up to the end of the game. There was also the typical Preseason Wrap, which detailed some of the best collegiate performances of 2010 ABL recruits. Lots of good stuff there this week.

Of course, we've got plenty of good stuff in the works for this week. I'm thinking about getting back on top of the player profiles now that we have a couple more rosters to work with. But I've been kind of a free spirit about my writing lately, so who knows what I'll end up doing. So check back often!