10/9/10 Odds & Ends: slim odds & short ends edition

It's been kind of a slow week, and quite honestly, I can't think of much to write for this post. I can, however, think of plenty of things that are worthy of their own posts. I've sat here for an hour or two poking around on the web for news bytes and just can't come up with anything, so I reckon I should just leave you with what I've got so far and go right to work on something much cooler to post in the coming days. So this is what I've got.

- Have you voted for the 49th State Hardball ABL-to-MLB Year-end awards? If not, hit this link up and fill out your official ballot. It's a quick and easy way to get your favorite ABLers in MLB recognized. After the first wave of voting there are some clear front-runners but there definitely haven't been enough votes for anyone to seal the deal yet. So it's not too late to help your favorite guy get over the top. Go vote!

- The College Baseball Blog has honored a former ABLer, and one of my favorites, in its top-100 ranking: 2010 Mat-Su Miner Andy Mee of Florida Atlantic. I highly recommend that you read the short piece by Brian Foley (link), the hardest working blogger in college ball. Of course, for more Andy Mee goodness, check out our very own scouting video.

Told you that would be short & sweet!

10/2/10 Odds & Ends

Alright, folks. There's some important stuff to talk about this weekend...but I'm hitting the road for Missoula, Montana today and I need to be on that highway like, right now. So let's get right to the nuts & bolts:

- The teams are right back at it, hitting it hard in preparation for the next season, and the Glacier Pilots are no exception. The team is holding a fund-raising extravaganza that involves a World Series watching party/Chili Cookoff/Raffle/pumpkin carving contest at the Bear & Raven theater in Anchorage. They need ticket buyers, ticket sellers, and world-class home-made chili to enter into the contest. Tickets are $50 and only 50 will be sold. If you want to get involved in any of the above-mentioned festivities, give 'em a buzz at (907) 274-3627.


- Over at Bus Leagues Baseball, a blog featuring commentary on all levels of non-MLB ball, they're doing their year-end awards, which I have been chosen as a panelist on. Well, former Anchorage Buc Paul Goldschmidt has tied for fifth in the voting for Minor League Player of the Year. Congrats Paul! And be sure to check out the Bus Leagues Baseball blog, one of my favorites.


- Remember the great Alaska Baseball League documentary, Touching the Game? Well the creators of the film have made a blog post to their website discussing the whereabouts of some of the players depicted in the movie. It's a short piece but well done and is a great look at what the future may hold for the stars of today's ABL.

9/25/10 Odds & Ends

All the random bits for the past week or so.

PG agreed with the league and picked Piscotty
to be the #1 prospect of 2010.

Hey guys. What a week it's been; we had three articles posted right off the bat and then I got bogged down in that dang Goldpanners draft eligible list (which I posted last night). But I had time to jot down some quick odds & ends for the week, and there's some decent ones here this time, so check out these little pieces of news from around the ABL world:

- 2007 AIA Fire OF Kirk Nieuwenhuis, now one of the top prospects in the New York Mets' farm system, is apparently joining the contingent of ABL players in the Arizona Fall League. According to Adam Rubin of ESPN.com's Mets blog, Nieuwenhuis was headed to the Dominican winter league before some roster shuffles deposited him in Arizona.

- It seems like the last season just barely ended, but the teams are out there recruiting like crazy. According to Miners GM Pete Christopher's statement on the team website, they've recruited about 80% of a team for next year. One of those players appears to be UMass Lowell standout Cam Kneeland, who made appearances in both the Cape and New England collegiate league last summer.

9/11/2010 Odds & Ends - Housekeeping Edition

"Spaceman" notches another pro win; Gorgen heads to D-Backs.

The oldest pitcher to win a pro game.
Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

Hey folks, we've got some actual news this week. And I'm backing that up with some info on where this blog is headed. Basically, it's time for some "fall cleaning" around here and I want your input, so see below!

- So oldschool Goldpanner Bill "Spaceman" Lee won his outing for the indy Brockton Rox this past week and has apparently become, at 63 years of age, the oldest player to win a professional baseball game. It took him only -- wait for it -- 63 pitches in 5 1/3 innings to pick up the victory, and he did not walk a man. Here's one little article on the event.

- In some pro prospect news, former Anchorage Bucs reliever Matt Gorgen has been sent packing to the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. He was a "player to be named later" in the Chad Qualls trade, and was leading the class-A Southern League in saves this year with 22. Matt was previously with Tampa Bay.

- Considering that it's the off-season and things have slowed down a bit, and we've got some time to figure things out before the next season, I'd like to open up the floor to any suggestions or comments about how to improve 49thStateHardball.com. Tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like. Tell me something you'd like to see that I don't do. Tell me something that I do do, that you don't want to see. It can be about the content of the site, the layout, a specific type of article, whatever. One specific idea I've been toying with since, well, the beginning of this site has been moving from a classic blog format to something more like a news-style website as far as the layout and organization is concerned, so any comments in that department would be much appreciated!

9/4/10 Odds & Ends

Hey everyone, it's Saturday, you know the drill. I'm really at a loss for good things to "fill out" this post this weekend, so I figure I'll just throw up the two things I've got real quick and go to work on one of the real articles I've got ready to post up next week. Here we go:

- If all goes well, the Mat-Su Miners will have a new concession stand at Hermon Brothers Field next season. According to their website, the new foundation has been poured and will begin construction after the state fair (at the adjacent fairgrounds) ends. I personally don't know what was wrong with the old one, it seemed as good as any I'd seen in the league. It also seems like the clubhouse/restrooms could use some work and possibly giving the umpires a better shed to dress in would be nice. But hey, as a person who loves food almost as much as I love baseball, I will not complain about any measures that will increase my face-stuffing pleasure.

- In other ballpark related news, for those of you who are sitting around in Fairbanks with nothing to do, why not head down to Growden for the Goldpanners' park cleanup work/party? It starts at 10 AM Alaska time, and I'm sure they won't mind if you show up a little late either.

That's all for this weekend. Told you it would be short. Assuming your employer is not a fascist, you should have a three day weekend coming up, so be safe and eat lots of hot dogs. Come back Monday for our next scouting video and check back shortly thereafter as I preview the ABL alumni who will be going to the Arizona Fall League this year. 

8/28/10 Odds & Ends

Bill Lee will make another pro appearance,
this time with the Brockton Rox.
Photo courtesy of Goldpanners.com

Another Saturday and another Odds & Ends post dished up for you. Things have been quiet around ABL land. Of course all the teams are transitioning from the flurry of the season and back into off-season mode (recruiting, improvements/maintenance to stadiums, etc.) without having much time to make any notable advances on those fronts. It's been kind of a slower week around here, I made my trip back to school for the winter and arrived two days late, so I've either been on the road or had my nose in a book all week. Anyway, there's not much this week, but here are a few quick shots:

- Here's a good one for PannerFans (or fans of the greatest pitcher ever, in my opinion): Bill "Spaceman" Lee (Panners, 1966-97) has signed with the independent Brockton Rox and will pitch one game on September 5th for the team. Of course, Lee is always pitching somewhere, whether it's in a New England adult league or barnstorming from Fairbanks to Havana with whatever bunch of guys he can round up, so I guess this shouldn't come as any huge surprise. But for a day anyway, the Spaceman will be a pro again.

- If you don't read the Peninsula Clarion often, you should check out this week's Clarion Calls. Jeff Helminiak has a couple tidbits on the Oilers, including an update on Jorge Marban's budding career with the Rangers organization (he's been promoted to Spokane of the Northwest League).

8/14/10 Odds & Ends

Well, it's Saturday. Odds & ends time. You guys know the drill by now. I'm headed up to Delta Junction for the weekend but I'll be back on Monday and probably hit you with some more scouting video. In the mean time, here's some quick shots for the weekend:

- The other day, we talked about former Glacier Pilot Drew Anderson and his very short stay in the independent leagues. Well, it was brought to my attention that current broadcast man for the Huntsville Stars -- where Anderson is currently assigned -- and formerly of the Goldpanners and Fire, Aaron Morse, has written a little piece on Anderson for his blog "A View From Behind the Mic". It's kind of weird how ABL people can cross paths like that, but it's a good article so go ahead and give it a read!

- Here's a little bit of ABL alumni news: former Anchorage Bucs, Glacier Pilots and East High right-hander Chad Nading has reportedly agreed to terms with the San Diego Padres on an undrafted free agent contract and has been assigned to their Arizona League rookie-level team. Congrats to Chad on joining the long list of pro alumni of the ABL! Here's the article from the ADN. (Good to see ADN covering ABL stuff in the off-season, too.)

- The  Miners have posted my YouTube video of their celebratory championship dogpile on their website. Which is great because my YouTube channel is blowin' up!

That's it! Have fun, be safe, see you Monday.

8/7/2010 Odds & Ends

Hey guys, with the season over and the off-season so young, it seems like there's not very many odds, nor many ends this week. So I'll make this quick. Check out the three blurbs below and then stay tuned in for the Oilers game coming up today.

- UPDATE: I'll just throw this in here since it kind of fits. I've had a bit of a family tragedy and I might need to take a couple of "personal days" from blogging. I'm not saying I definitely won't post, but I might not do so with my usual vigor and if I have to leave town for a few it won't be the first thing on my mind. Just to let you know that any interruption will be short-term and not to worry.

- Here's an article on my all-time favorite Goldpanner and one of my top players in general, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, from a fantastic blog called The Golden Sombrero. The article is basically about how Lee did and said all kinds of wacky things, although it neglects to mention how he came up to Alaska to play for this team called the Goldpanners back when that was still kind of a crazy thing to do. Anyway, thumbs up on the article and the blog, you should check it out.

- For those of you who are interested in how the season league leaders list shook out, check out the stats on the Glacier Pilots' website. They've got season league leaders in all categories. Some really interesting stuff on there...look at all the Miners on the batting average category. I didn't think I'd see anyone challenge Drew Heid's batting title last year, but Brett Schwartz has pulled it off, hitting over .400 for the season.

7/30/2010 Odds & Ends: The Final Countdown edition

Here it is. The last stand. The league title will be determined tomorrow...and then? The off-season. UGH! But, don't worry. 49thStateHardball.com will be with you all winter long to give you your ABL fix. In the mean time, here's some quick shots from the past week:

- In case you missed it, I was the special guest on this week's Valley Sports Huddle on AM 1430, live from Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer. So this was my first radio appearance and it went pretty good I think, other than a couple hitches. Such as when I said "uhhhh" for about 20 seconds while trying to think of a certain pitcher's name (LIAM BARON! I remembered it as soon as I was driving home). But I had a blast talking ABL with host Jeremiah Bartz and I'm always glad to do something to get the good word out there. Big thanks to Jeremiah and the Hometown Radio folks for having me on the air.

- For those of you who are wondering how the NBC tournament will fall out, as far as Alaska is concerned anyway, the bracket is set. The Miners have gone on record saying that they will not go to Wichita, which means the Oilers and Panners are our teams regardless of how the 1-2-3 standings turn out in the league. Miners GM Pete Christopher told me today that the Oilers are already on their way to Kansas. The Panners have to finish out tomorrow with the Miners to see who gets the league title, but it's inconsequential for the tournament as the doubleheader split tonight earned the Goldpanners the #1 Alaska seed spot. So who's playing who when? The Oilers will take on the League City Hornets on Tuesday, Aug 3rd and the Goldpanners will follow up against the Hutchinson Monarchs on the 4th. The complete bracket (in PDF version) is available here.

7/24/2010 Odds & Ends

Reagan Moczygema gets some high-fives.

Here we go, down the home stretch! It seems like this season has just been flying by, and with about a week left to go, we've got a lot of updates. We've seen a lot of players come (and, unfortunately, go) and the championship picture is coming into focus. Here's some odds & ends for the past week:

- If you're interested in the Alaska League for the prospects, you should definitely check out this article in the ADN. They talked about last weekend's Scout Showcase and interviewed some of the scouts who came up. Angels scout Casey Harvie -- who may or may not have been the one who hooked me up with the funky beach towel out of his door prize box (thanks dude!) -- described the league as "the breeding ground of the future". I overheard at the event that there were scouts from 25 teams in attendance, and the ADN article linked above states that a dozen have already been through Anchorage. So I'd say it's pretty safe to say that every MLB team has sent someone through the ABL at least once this season.

- Elsewhere in the media, the Frontiersman has a great article on Miner Reagan Moczygemba, the mid-season pick-up third baseman for the Mat-Su squad. The story is that Moczygemba -- pronounced, I believe, "Moochy Gomba", or just "Mooch" as his teammates call him -- was attending the College World Series as a spectator when he was instructed via text message to call Russ Raley about the spot on the Miners' roster. I've been pretty excited about Moczygemba since he got here, and as the article says, he really helped Anchor the Miners' infield.

7/17/10 Odds & Ends: Non-existent edition

Hey guys! I'm not going to write much today because in about an hour I'll be headed in for the scout's showcase in Anchorage. I figure rather than babbling on a  bout miscellaneous stuff, you'd rather I go cover some actual games, so I'll spare you all this weekend.

Really quick though, I want to leave you guys a note on how the end of the season is going to roll out around here. My real work is taking me away from the league for the last week of the season and I'll be away from home for about a month. I imagine I will have internet where I'm going but probably not great internet and either way, not a lot of free time. Don't worry. I'm going to write enough stuff in advance (player profiles and such) to pick up the slack so there will not be a severe drop in the amount of goodness posted to the site, and I'll do my best to keep writing while I'm out and about even though it will probably be at a slower pace.

Now, to the nuts and bolts. I've got about a week left in civilization. I have three goals. 1) Stay for the night cap of today's scout's showcase (I originally planned to bail after the first two games, 2) Catch a game in Kenai, 3) Catch a game in Fairbanks. That's a pretty tall order considering I have just one week left to be here. But I'm going to discuss it with the family and see what I can fit in. If I get two out of those three I will be satisfied. If I can't get at least two, I would prefer to pull off tonight's last game. My goal here, in case you  haven't figured it out, is to see every team one last time before we wrap it up.

UPDATE 9:35 a.m.: The plan is now to go to all three scout showcase games to see every team one last time, and then pack it in. If it's convenient, I will try to get to any additional games I can, but I have some other loose ends to tie up and I won't be pushing the envelope for one more ballgame. These last three games at Mulcahy will probably be the final ones of my season, so if you've been waiting to come say hi, do it tonight!

So I'll let you know! I'll be at the park tonight in Anchorage. I'd say look for the guy with the camera bag and notebook, but it's a scout's showcase, so hopefully there will be lots of guys there with notebooks and bags. So you'll just have to look hard, or hold a sign that says "jjack" or something. Peace!

7/10/2010 Odds & Ends - the Brett and Bret edition

Brett Atwood is Back in Black (and gold)
Photo courtesy of AnchorageBucs.com

Well, it's Saturday, and as happens on (nearly) every Saturday, I'm writing an Odds & Ends post. This week I actually have some interesting stuff to write about. You see, I started taking notes for the O&E throughout the week so I didn't forget all the interesting stuff, and go figure, now I don't have to scratch around for boring junk to fill a page with. How awesome is that?

- Great news: Brett Atwood is in Alaska. He was originally scratched from the Anchorage Bucs' opening day roster, and I had crossed him off the Players to Watch list. Well, he's finally made the trip up and been added to the team. Great to see, because he's a very exciting player and a second-year Buc. Accordingly, I've un-crossed him from the Players to Watch list, and while I was at it I fixed some table wonkiness that I hadn't noticed until that point.

- On the other side of the Bucs transaction coin, their roster has been updated, and just look at how many people are on the DL. We talked about Brian Bello last week; he's one of the DL-listed players so I guess that's a pretty good indication that he went home with an injury. Bummer! Maybe we'll see him next year.

07/03/2010 Odds & Ends

Brian Bello is, sadly, done for
the year.
Photo: AnchorageBucs.com

I've got a few interesting tidbits for you guys on this soggy Saturday. Cutting right to the chase, here they are:

- An update on one of my favorite Bucs players: Brian Bello has apparently packed it in for the year. He really struggled this season, hitting .083, but from what I've seen of Bello I doubt that's the reason he's headed home early. He really seemed to be, in many ways, the heart of the Bucs' clubhouse and I don't think he's the kind of guy who has "quit" in him. It's most likely a personal reason and we'll leave it at that. Whatever the case, it's a bummer to see him go, and here's wishing Brian the best in wherever the road may take him from here.

- Oilers fans should check out the latest Clarion Call, "Oilers face Interior challenge", which goes on to describe the challenges that the Oilers will face on their Fairbanks road trip if they plan to keep up their run at the ABL title this year. Of course, they got off on the wrong foot, getting spanked by a suddenly fearsome-looking AIA Fire squad, and the Bucs are looking like they might climb out of the basement as well. Early on it looked like the Miners and Oilers were going to run away from the rest of the league, but it's shaping up to be more or less as I predicted (except for the Pilots, who still haven't found a groove): a tight race.

- I took my four-year-old daughter/assistant to the Miners game on Thursday and it came off pretty good. She had way too much energy and I had to keep telling her to keep her fingers out of the fence, but she enjoyed herself. Here's my tip for parents of little kids who can't sit still for a ball game (read: every little kid, ever): get a bag of peanuts. My daughter and another little boy we sat near were entertained for about six consecutive innings shelling the peanuts. They didn't even eat them, they gave most of them to me, which kept my hands free for writing/stopwatching. Good work to the kiddos! But really, the ABL games are all really kid-friendly, in different ways, and once they get a little bit older I think there's plenty of promotions and other fun stuff for them to do around the park.

6/26/2010 Odds & Ends

Jason Castro: now a major leaguer

It's Saturday, time again for another Odds & Ends post. In keeping with the tradition of not writing a whole ton on Saturdays during the season, this will be another short one. It just seems that the real news is the games and that's what I spend the rest of the week covering. That being said, there are a few notable events in ABL-land that have occurred away from the ballparks: 

- Tuesday was the Major League Baseball debut of a former ABL player and the guy who I ranked the #1 Top Pro Prospect among ABL alumni this season, Jason Castro (Bucs, 2006), catcher for the Houston Astros. He really showed off his powerful arm in his debut, throwing out two runners. I've said it before, but with the kind of abilities that Jason has combined with the fact that catcher is a pretty shallow position in MLB right now, Castro has the potential to be a very big star. Congratulations to Jason! You can read the full story and see his first at-bat here.

- Some photos from the Midnight Sun Game have been going around the series of tubes we know as the internet. One really cool photo was posted on, of all places, TampaBay.com of the St. Petersburg Times. Check this out, third photo down. It's pretty cool that somewhere as far away as Florida would sit up and take note of this event. Now, on the other hand, if you're not satisfied with a single artsy photo, the Fairbanks News-Miner has a whole slideshow of pics.

6/19/2010 Odds & Ends: Completely Unbiased Edition

- First of all, my game schedule for this season is looking pretty screwed up. In a perfect world, I could see every team on a completely even rotation, watch them during their home and away games, and cover everyone fairly and equitably. Of course, this isn't a perfect world, so what I was hoping for was to finish out this week by catching the Pilots and Oilers and being able to at least say that I've seen every team one or more times by now. However, apparently my wife, my in-laws, their entire families and all the teams of the Alaska Baseball League missed the memo that says they need to consult me and arrange their plans around my schedule. Unbelievable!

But seriously, I'm not going to catch either of those teams before they head up to Fairbanks, so unless someone has a lot of money lying around and wants to put some gas in my van for a big road trip, I'm just going to do the best that I can to cover the other teams in person for now and then switch my focus when the Pilots come back and the Oilers make their big Anchorage-area road trip in July. I apologize to the Pilots and Oilers fans out there who may feel that I'm being biased against their teams; that's not my intention, I'm trying to do the best that I can, and hopefully by season's end I'll have covered everyone relatively equally. I'll also try to take the opportunity to do some recaps of the audio feeds, player profiles, random stories, etc. regarding the other teams so that you guys aren't completely left out.

6/12/10 Odds & Ends - Actually playing baseball edition

Mark Joukoff will be on the sidelines for the
next couple weeks.
Photo: AnchorageBucs.com

Holy cow, it's actually here. Alaska Baseball is happening for real. And what a start. The Oilers are pacing the league with a 3-0 record (didn't I tell you they'd be better this year?), there have been a ton of tight games and pitching duels, and I can't get enough. I'm obsessed. So here's the dish on this week's odds & ends:

- Let's start it off with a little trivia. Did you know that today is the birthday of the Mat-Su Miners? The Valley Green Giants -- precursors of the modern Miners -- played their very first game on this day in 1976.

- So far we've had a couple ABL draftees sign pro contracts. I already reported (and scooped the world!) that Panners recruit Darian Sandford has signed (real name is Clifford) with the Royals, and that Ryan Cole (Miners, 2009) has come to terms with Houston. Houston and KC have been the most active as far as getting their players to sign. Oakland has been aggressive in coming to terms as well, but the only draft pick out of AK they have is Matt Thomson (Oilers, 2007) who was taken in the 12th round, and so far there's no indication that those two parties have come to terms. Every other team has been pretty quiet as far as signing their draft picks, but we'll continue to monitor the situation.

- We've already got at least one injury on the short season. The Bucs' Mark Joukoff was injured while taking infield practice on Monday; twisting his ankle while leaping for a high throw. He'll probably be out for about two weeks, which means he'll miss about two starts on the hill.

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.

5/22/10 Odds & Ends

Jesse Meaux: Primetime Performer
Photo Credit: Goldpanners.com

Well, we made it through another week. And that brings us another week closer to the start of the season! I got some good stuff posted up this week, including one very important article just last night...the Top 10 Pro Prospects list. It was kinda hard to rank these guys, and I played with some different cutoffs to see if something felt more natural or if I could make the distribution of the teams a little more equitable, but when it was all said and done, Top 10 just seemed to work the best. But hey, let's not beat a dead horse here, what else happened this week?

- Jesse Meaux (Panners, 2008-09) was picked by College Baseball 360 as a Primetime Performer for the week of May 10-16. The deed that earned him this selection was a one-run complete game shutout for the UC Santa Barbara Guachos, his second collegiate complete game. He invoked four double-plays to get himself through the 8-hit performance largely unscathed. Do you think it's a coincidence that guys named Jesse are so awesome? Jesse Meaux, Jesse Sikorski, and yours truly of course. Yeah, probably not a coincidence.

- The Glacier Pilots are going to be having a season kick-off BBQ and raffle tomorrow night! The shin-dig gets started at 4:00 PM, it's going to be at the Moose Lodge at 4211 Arctic in Anchorage, and the tickets are $100. That hundred gets you admission for two, an entry into the big cash prize raffle with a $10,000 grand prize, and two general admission season passes ($150 value). So if you've got some cash burning a hole in your pocket and want to support a good cause, swing by the Moose Lodge.

5/15/10 Odds & Ends - Less than a month to go edition

Strange things are done in the midnight sun...
Like the Midnight Sun Baseball Classic.  #4 on ESPN's
Must See list for 2010.

Here we are, just a few short weeks until the opening salvos are fired in the all-out battle that is to be the 2010 Alaska Baseball League season. OK, so maybe that's a little extreme, like I'm trying to sell tickets to the monster truck rally, but I'm seriously stoked. I will unfortunately be out of state for the first couple weeks, but when I get back, watch out because I'm going to be pounding the games hard.

Today also marks my last final exam for the semester, so until I find some sort of job (and unless you guys start clicking the hell out of the ad banners on here, that will happen eventually) I'm going to make this blog my full-time gig. Pretty quick here I'm going to write up a big "to do" list so you can all see what's coming up, and I'm going to knock everything out as fast as I can so I can caught up before the season starts and the real fun begins.

So that's what's going on in jjack-land. Now, for the rest of the ABL world...

- Here's a guy that snuck by me when I was finishing up the Pro Prospects list...Tyson Ross (Bucs, 2006) made the Oakland A's bullpen this spring and has apparently been doing very well. The Bucs' website has a link to this great article on the Minor League Ball blog over at SB Nation. According to those guys, Ross has a mid-90's fastball that he compliments with a "nasty" slider and a decent off-speed pitch. He has had some control problems in the past but seems to be ironing them out. The Minor League Ball blogger also says that he's got the makeup of a starter in the long run, but will stay in the pen for now.

5/8/10 Odds & Ends - Late Night Edition

Are you up burning the midnight oil with me? I guess you must be if you're reading this and it's still Saturday. I know you guys have all been sitting up just waiting for me to put up the Saturday Odds & Ends, so here goes...here's your quick notes for the past week:

- Jesse Sikorski (Panners, 2010 recruit) of DIII Johns Hopkins tore up the conference tournament last week, going 6-for-10, 8R, 7RBI and two homers. For his efforts he was named Centennial Conference Player of Week and Tournament MVP. Sikorski has been putting up ridiculous numbers in DIII ball; I can't wait to see what he can bring to the plate up here in AK this summer.

- It has been brought to my attention that some of the other teams are doing youth clinics as well this year. The Bucs' clinic is free for ages 6 to 13, and it's going down June 14 thru 18th. Participants get a Bucs tee shirt and a free youth season pass. The application is available online, and you don't need to pre-register, just print it out and bring it to the park. The Mat-Su Miners are doing a clinic, too, as they do every year. But there is a registration fee and they are asking that you RSVP. All the info on that is available here.