5/29/10 Odds & Ends

The Bucs' and Pilots' new infield is
open for business.
Photo courtesy of Anchoragebucs.com

We're getting really close now. Tomorrow will open the last full week before two big events: the start of baseball in Alaska, and the MLB draft. There are a lot of posts I want to have done before then and I'm blogging like a madman to keep up. I've gotta do two more draft eligible lists and the draft ranking ASAP, and I also want to do a season preview. It's gonna be a race to the finish, but once its over we can focus on the fun stuff...ABL baseball! But right now, let's wrap up the little tidbits of the past week...

- The Goldpanners have a couple articles, penned by none other than Don Dennis himself, up on their website. One is regarding the "first wave" of Panner players who will be coming up to open the team's season, and the other is about the old days of summer ball and a little history on the Panners and how the whole scene got started.

- Oilers recruit and Florida International sophomore Garrett Wittels has run his hitting streak up to 49 games. He's leapfrogged former Goldpanner Phil Stephensen who held the second-place record with 47 games. Wittels is now just 9 shy of Robin Ventura's all-time division 1 record of 58. Can he do it? I don't want to say so. I would probably get gang beaten for jinxing it if I said that he's got a shot now. So I won't say it. Nope, not gonna say it.

- The Governor of Alaska and Mayor of Anchorage were on hand to cut the ribbon at Mulcahy's new turf infield recently (photo on Glacierpilots.com). The glory for this project really goes to the local American Legion Baseball folks; they were the ones who put up all the money for the new infield (edit: more accurately, the Legion wrote the grant to secure funding for the field. The money originated with the State. Regardless, it wouldn't have been paid for without their work). Besides the neat new turf they've also built a new mound, which is supposed to be "big league" quality -- a big improvement over the old one. A lot of Legion parents also put in volunteer hours to make this a possibility. Local Legion teams have been using the field a lot this spring, I hear, and rightfully so since they were the ones who made it possible for us all to enjoy. If you haven't seen it yet, the Bucs have some photos on their site in addition to the Pilots.

Well, that was short and sweet this week. I've got bigger fish to fry! Finishing up the aforementioned posts, getting my stuff together, and getting the heck out of the mountains and up to Alaska (where it's warm!) to enjoy some baseball. I'm going to have a flurry of posts happening this week, so stay tuned.