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.

2010 Player Profile: Martin Medina

#22 Martin Medina
3B - Goldpanners
Height: 5'10" - Weight: 200lb
Bats: Right - Throws: Right
School: CS Bakersfield
Year: Sophomore
Hometown: Ventura, California
All posts regarding Martin Medina

Martin Medina is another one of those Goldpanners who is familiar with the friendly confines of Growden Park. A second-year Panner, Medina returned in 2010 a year older, a year wiser, and a year better with the stick, and has thus far put up a season worthy of first-team All-ABL honors.

Medina was firmly established as an every-day player in the Division I ranks a year ago as a freshman, when he started all 50 games for Cal State Bakersfield -- making him the only player to do so. He followed up in the 2010 collegiate season with a .311 average and team-best 51 RBI. He's also been utilized both ways, proving his versatility by putting up 11 decent innings pitched for the Roadrunners.

2010 Player Profile: Stephen Piscotty

#25 Stephen Piscotty
UTIL - Peninsula Oilers
Height: 6'3" - Weight: 190lb
Bats: Right - Throws: Right
School: Stanford
Year: Freshman
Hometown: Pleasanton, California
More articles regarding Stephen Piscotty

Hailing from the most pleasant town in California (Pleasanton) comes Stephen Piscotty, the big right-handed play-anywhere (including pitcher) guy who has been turning heads all summer in the ABL. Believe it or not, I was actually going to write this profile before he took home league honors for Best Prospect and Silver Slugger in 2010, and that only fuels my desire to get as many words written down about this dude as possible, because it's obvious that he's going places.

Piscotty is a strong pro draft candidate, having been previously selected out of high school in the 45th round by the Dodgers. However, he committed to Stanford and went to school this last season to play for their ball club (making him next draft-eligible in 2012). Down in Palo Alto he paced the DI team with 17 doubles, hit .326 and put up a .454 SLG%. Since coming up with the Oilers he's proven to be one of the team's most consistent hitters, batting out of the meat of the order, and has definitely earned the aforementioned acclaim (and did I mention, 49th State Hardball Player to Watch status?).

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.

2010 Player Profile: Scott Sitz

#13 Scott Sitz
RHP - Mat-Su Miners
Bats: Right - Throws: Right
Height: 5'9" - Weight: 215lb
School: Florida State
Year: Freshman
Hometown: Jacksonville Beach, Florida
All articles regarding Scott Sitz

The Mat-Su Miners, and the Alaska League in general, has had great success bringing up Florida kids this year, the least of which is valley hurler Scott Sitz straight out of Jax Beach. Sitz did his freshman season at Florida State this year, splitting his time between the starting rotation and the relief corps (six starts in 17 appearances). Sitz held opposing batters to a .207 average in Division I play for the Seminoles before coming up to Alaska.

Since heading north for the Miners, Sitz has been even more stellar. The rightie has posted a 2.74 ERA and has been even stingier with his BAA, dropping it down to .160. The highlight of his season was quite possibly the complete game no-hitter he threw -- one measly walk away from a perfect game, no less -- at the Scout's Showcase in Anchorage against the Fire. That was definitely one of my most memorable experiences at a baseball game, that's for sure.

2010 Player Profile: Zach Vincej

Zach Vincej, the scurviest Buc to ever sail the high
seas of Cook Inlet.  Photo courtesy of Rachel Leask
& the Anchorage Bucs.

#7 Zach Vincej
SS - Anchorage Bucs
Height: 5'11" - Weight: 165lb
Bats: Right - Throws: Right
School: Pepperdine
Year: Freshman
Hometown: Saugus, California
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Zach Vincej is only a freshman at Pepperdine, but he's already a veteran of the Anchorage Bucs. The shortstop came up with the Bucs in 2009 straight out of Saugus High in California, where he was one of the most highly-touted players in the state until the Waves won the battle for him. The member of the Youth World Championship gold-medal team fielded recruitment calls from several big-name baseball programs. After his rookie campaign with the Bucs, he made his debut at Pepperdine and nailed down all-freshman honors in the WCC as well as all-conference honorable mention.

Having already garnered such acclaim, as well as the illustrious 49th State Hardball Player to Watch status, it's easy to forget that Vincej has yet to begin his sophomore year of college. But as a Division I player, he won't be draft eligible until 2012. In a way, that's good for him; he'll have another two full years of college ball (and dare I say, another season as a Buc?) before he goes on the market. That being said, he's already shown some skill on the diamond that pro teams would love to have.

The Goldpanners 50th Anniversary Yearbook, in review

Throughout the season, I've picked up most of the ABL teams' programs, media guides, or yearbooks at the parks. Some are better than others, all are worth the meager price, but the one I received in the mail from the Panners has been my favorite thus far. With that being the case, I believe that I owe it to the team to give a review of the fine piece of literature that appeared in my mailbox a couple weeks ago, the Goldpanners of Fairbanks 50th Anniversary Yearbook. 

The first thing I look for when I open up a program/media guide/yearbook is the content to ad ratio. I understand that teams need to sell advertisements to put a team on the field, especially in this league, and that the number of ads is probably inversely proportional to the cash reserves of the team in question. So I don't mean to take a cut against a team that may need to sell two pages of ads just to cover the cost of one page of information and still keep the book affordable enough to sell for a buck or two. But I will confess that I prefer a publication that is more content than advertisements. Call me spoiled if you will, but the Goldpanners guide scores big points in this regard. In 22 pages of content + two covers, there are approximately six full pages of ads (if you add up the stray advertisements to equal a full page). As far as these things go, that's a pretty awesome ratio.

So there's a lot of content in here, but what is it? In addition to the standard fare -- current roster, season schedule, photos and biographies of some of the players -- there is a wealth of interesting info in there. Tons of historical information. Some of my favorites include an All-Time Top 50 Goldpanners list (you have to buy the program to see who's on it!), a complete listing of all 1,200 Goldpanners taken in the MLB draft and roughly 200 who've made it to the big leagues, and the starting lineups for every team in the club history.