Fairbanks, Alaska, requires toughness. Living on the 65th parallel, you
don't exactly spend time thinking about how the petunias are coming along.
The average high temperature in January is 2-below. Extension cords dangle
out of car grills, and most parking spaces are equipped with electrical
outlets. That's because if you parked for a few hours during an Alaska
winter without plugging in, your engine would become an Ice Pop.
Mother Nature hung a Keep Out sign here, and most of humanity listened. The
population of Fairbanks, Alaska's third-largest city, is 30,000. That's a
couple of city blocks in midtown Manhattan. But there's evidence that
Alaskans are not daft. After all, even here, they find ways to play
baseball.
In the early 1900s, on Alaska's southern tip, locals built a field on the
tidal flats of Ketchikan Creek. When the tide was high, the field was
underwater. At low tide, they played. In Barrow, on Alaska's northern tip,
there's a field with a road through right field. The right fielder has the
right of way on a batted ball. And in Fairbanks, on every summer solstice,
they play the Midnight Sun game. It starts on June 21 and ends June 22, no
lights allowed.
That was confusing for Chu Yuan-Chin, a 19-year-old Taiwanese outfielder for
the Goldpanners, Fairbanks' entry in the Alaska Baseball League--a respected
summer training ground for U.S. college players.
The Goldpanners have been the hosts of the game (first played in 1906) since
1960, and Chu soon learned he wasn't just adjusting to America--he was
adjusting to Alaska. But when Goldpanners starter Chris Kissock threw his
first pitch against Beatrice (Neb.) at Growden Memorial Park, it was 10:27
p.m. and sunny, with the temperature in the 50s. By the seventh-inning
stretch, it was 11:43 and still sunny.
At 12:31, Chu fought fatigue and doubled in the bottom of the 10th to give
the Goldpanners a 2-1 win. "It's weird," Chu says. "I never thought I'd play
a day game that ends at 1 a.m. It was tough to see."
Tough. Exactly. The Midnight Sun game is baseball under any circumstances,
even the toughest that Alaska offers. Don Dennis, the Goldpanners' general
manager, was attracted to the team by a tough situation. In 1967, he was
working with a team in Grand Junction, Colo., when the Goldpanners' field
flooded. In need of help, team founder Red Boucher lured Dennis to
straighten out the Goldpanners. Dennis never left.
One of Dennis' heroes is a tough SOB, Gutzon Borglum, the man who created
Mount Rushmore. The sculpture is nice, but Dennis reveres him because he's a
kindred spirit. When Borglum recruited workers, not only did they have to be
the finest in their field but they had to play baseball.
When the Taiwanese national team visited Fairbanks for pre-Olympic work in
1984, how do you suppose Dennis housed them? The Fairbanks Ritz? Nope; he
bought used trailers that had housed workers on the Alaska Pipeline. They're
still home for visiting teams.
Fairbanks players are given $800 for the summer and are set up with host
families. Part of their duties include field maintenance at 11 a.m.
(Outfielder Jordan Mayer bemoans, "They pushed it back for the midnight
game--all the way to noon.") Veterans of the Goldpanners would scoff. Used
to be, players got summer jobs. Rugged catcher Bob Boone worked at a
lumberyard. Dan Pastorini--later a quarterback in the NFL--spent the summer
of 1968 wrestling barrels for Standard Oil.
Obviously, there is value in Fairbanks toughness. The team has produced
almost 200 major leaguers. Dave Winfield was better known as a basketball
player before his stint in 1971. Tom Seaver was a junior college kid in
1964. Alvin Davis and Harold Reynolds forged a Fairbanks friendship before
they became Mariners teammates. BALCO did not exist when Barry Bonds played
for the Goldpanners in 1983 nor when Jason Giambi was with the team in 1990.
When Winfield made his induction speech at the Hall of Fame in 2001, he
reflected on his time in Alaska. He listed three favorite things: "To get a
chance to win, climb mountains and go dogsledding in the winter."
Mountains, dogsledding and winning baseball games. Those Alaskans do some
tough things
COPYRIGHT 2006 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group
