Pre-Game: Oilers @ Miners, 7/28/2010

While the boys of the Cape Cod League are prancing about Fenway Park in their 2010 All-Star Game Brought To You By Whichever Big Corporate Sponsor(s) Ponied Up The Money (TM), the blue-collar players of the Peninsula Oilers and Mat-Su Miners will be grinding out one of the last games of the long season that will, in part, determine the winner of the most coveted summer-ball crown this side of the Mississippi: the Alaska Baseball League championship.

CBS might not be there to broadcast the game nation-wide, but this is a very important match-up. The Oilers have to win tonight to keep their championship hopes alive. They're still in contention but they're hanging by a thread. If the Miners take tonight's game, they'll knock the Oilers out of the picture and set themselves up to make a run at the first-place Goldpanners, all on home turf.

Someone will be broadcasting, though. AM 1430 will be airing the Valley Sports Huddle live from Hermon Brothers Field at 5:00pm, and I've been invited to come and talk ABL with host Jeremiah Bartz. You should tune in! The game follows immediately with the first pitch scheduled for six. I'll be there and would suggest that any and all Miners fans, or fans of baseball in general, head on down to the park to check out this pivotal game.

If you can't be there, tune into AM 1430 in the valley, ESPN 1140 down on the Peninsula, or catch the live feed on either station's websites. And check out my Twitter feed. Assuming my BlackBerry behaves from the park today (no promises) I'll bet live tweeting some scouting notes throughout the game.

Pre-Game: Miners @ Pilots, 7/06/2010

Hey everyone! I'm headed into the Glacier Pilots game tonight. Here we are half way through the year and this is the first time I'll be seeing the Boys in Blue, so you can imagine that I'm pretty stoked. In light of that (and perhaps this will become a regular thing), I just wanted to make a pre-game post to share some of my thoughts with you.

For a little take on the game, the Pilots are hoping to turn their fortunes this season around with a solid home stand. But they'll have to stand up to the Miners, who have been in the thick of the three-way race for the top spot in the league all season long. This is a very significant game for both teams; if the Pilots want to make a run for the title or even a winning finish, tonight's doubleheader could make or break that. On the other hand, the Miners will have to take advantage of their games against a thus-far weaker team if they hope to keep pace with the Oilers and Goldpanners. Two wins tonight could be big for either team, but two losses could be even more devastating.

Tonight I'm going to show up, relax, and focus mainly on player-watching. I really wanted to get a good photo post out of it at first, and I was going to show up early and try to get in to take in warmups & BP. But, plans changed when I got a call this morning for a job interview in Wasilla at 5:15pm. I made a clutch decision and decided that a job was more important than a baseball game (obviously having an income and a decent job with a steady schedule will facilitate my blogging, despite the obvious decrease in free time, so it's worth sacrificing part of a game now to improve my abilities for the rest of the season). So, yeah, we're probably not going to have a photo post tonight/tomorrow, but look for some scouting notes then.