2000 Alaska Goldpanners
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Goldpanners look to Pitching Staff for 2000 Season

Michelle Eastty

With the end of the hockey season and the promise of spring right around the corner, baseball fever hits sports fans like the sun coming out after a long, dark winter. And while hockey is the sport of choice throughout the winter, baseball is no less popular during the summer in Fairbanks.

The Fairbanks Goldpanners of the Alaska Baseball League are gearing up for their fifth decade of organized baseball in the North. The first game is scheduled for June 14, and there are seven returning players this summer, according to the Goldpanners’ team Web site. Also in the lineup are 21 promising players who are new to Alaska baseball.

The amateur baseball team is made up of some of the nation’s leading collegiate players. One hundred seventy-one former Goldpanners have moved on into Major League Baseball, including Dave Winfield (Goldpanners, 1972), Barry Bonds (1983), Oddibe McDowell (1982, 83) and Jose Cruz, Jr. (1993). No other summer league team has that many alumni in the major leagues.

In the 1999 season, the Goldpanners finished in third place in the league with an overall record of 24-21. Dan Cowgill, a Goldpanner alumnus from 1976, enters his third season as field manager. This summer, the Panners welcome a lineup that includes five players from Wake Forest University in North Carolina, four from Arizona State University and three from San Diego State, as well as several prospects from other top-notch collegiate teams.

Todd Dennis, assistant general manager for the Goldpanners, said this year’s pitching staff will be the strength of the team.

"We’ll have solid pitching," Dennis said. "We may have a better pitching staff than everyone else."

One of the top prospects Dennis is counting on is Arizona State University sophomore Jon Switzer, a lefthander who has 82 strikeouts and an 8-1 record for the Sun Devils this season. There is some concern that he may not make it to Alaska, though, because he has been invited to the U.S. National Baseball Team tryouts in June.

According to Dennis, Fairbanks often loses some recruits to the USA Team and the draft, but he said there are still plenty of other talented players to choose from.

Purdue’s Dave Gassner and Gonzaga’s Barry Matthews are both strong pitchers who have signed with the Goldpanners this year, said Dennis.

"We have several returnees this year," Dennis said. "It always helps to have veteran players back in the lineup."

Pitcher Scott Siemon will take the mound for the Goldpanners for his third consecutive summer. Siemon, a junior at Wake Forest, first came to Fairbanks as a third baseman. Because the team already had third base covered, Siemon, wanting to get into the lineup, agreed to try out the pitcher’s mound. He threw just 15 innings for the Goldpanners and had eight strikeouts, finishing with a 3.52 earned run average. However, he’s been a strong member of the Wake Forest pitching squad throughout the 2000 season, posting a record of 8-1 so far.

Another familiar face is Arizona State’s Brooks Conrad, a switch hitter whom ASU has deemed "one of the top second basemen in collegiate baseball." He was an offensive leader for the Panners, a trait on which Fairbanks hopes to capitalize again this year. Last season he held a .285 batting average for the Goldpanners and led the Alaska League with 37 runs scored. He led the club with 21 runs batted in and 14 stolen bases. During the 2000 baseball season with Arizona, Conrad, a sophomore, is batting .358. He was named Pac-10 Player of the Week in March for his outstanding performance against the University of Arizona. In a two-game series, Conrad slugged two home runs and 10 RBI and scored six runs. And to continue the impressive numbers, he had a 21-game hitting streak that ended this month.

For some, Alaska baseball runs in the family. Eddie Stroecker played in the first games in Fairbanks and was considered the "best player in Fairbanks in the 00’s and 10’s." His son, Bill Stroecker, is the current Goldpanner president.

Coming up for his first year in a Goldpanner uniform is Chad Redfern, the son of former Minnesota Twin pitcher Pete Redfern. Chad Redfern is a strong outfielder for San Diego State.

Continuing his career in Alaska is sophomore catcher Greg Sain from the University of San Diego. Sain’s father, Tommy Sain, was a talented fielder and aggressive baserunner for the Panners in 1973 and ’74. He was a powerful slugger, and his son is following in his footsteps, dubbed by the Goldpanners as "leading the club in power output" last summer, after hitting three homers and four doubles and posting 19 RBI. Sain’s season was cut short by a broken bone in his arm, but he is slated to return in good shape for the Panners in June.

Outfielder Jonah Martin of Arizona State was the Goldpanners’ leading hitter last season with a .316 batting average. He hasn’t slowed down yet as he holds a .347 batting average for the ASU Sun Devils with two home runs and 18 RBI this year.

Stanford’s Arik Van Zandt, third baseman Jason Aspito of Loyola Marymount, pitcher Jordan Olson of LA City College and Charles Merricks will also return to the Fairbanks lineup this summer.

The Goldpanners will miss the talents of last year’s outstanding pitchers David Bush, Sean Timmons and Ryan Olsen. But in addition to retaining Scott Siemon, the Fairbanks pitching staff welcomes another Wake Forest standout, freshman Ben Clayton. The southpaw hurled a no-hitter in March against the University of North Carolina, fanning a career-high 13 batters, according to WFU statistics. The win improved Clayton’s record to 6-2 on the season, while WFU boasts an overall 29-9-1 record.

Outfielder Nate Sickler, a junior at Purdue University, should be a great offensive asset to the Goldpanners. This year he is hitting .296 for the Boilermakers and leads his club with 8 home runs and 8 RBI.

These young players, many of them future major leaguers, will become part of a 41-year franchise that has benefited from the likes of players such as Tom Seaver and Graig Nettles. The non-professional team dominated the league in the 1970’s and has won five N.B.C. national championships.

Baseball came to Alaska long before it was organized into the Alaska League, though. Ninety-five years ago, Eddie Stroecker and his Fairbanks team challenged various local military and business teams.

Fairbanksans—from sourdoughs to cheechakos—look forward to the customary Midnight Sun baseball game on the longest night of the year. This year the Goldpanners are scheduled to play the Santa Barbara Foresters on June 21 beginning at 10:30 p.m. Following tradition, play will stop between the innings closest to midnight for the honorary singing of the "Alaska Flag" song.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on June 20, 1914, described the originality of the game this way: "The only place on earth where a midnight ball game is played is right here in the little old town of Fairbanks in the heart of Alaska, half a degree south of the Arctic circle. The custom originated here many years ago and is faithfully observed."

Michelle Eastty