Athletes in Action may join ABL

Frontiersman sports editor

MAT-SU The Alaska Baseball League may welcome Athletes in Action as a full-fledged member, possibly as soon as next season.

AIA recently returned to the Lower 48 after a road trip to all of the ABL teams, including three games against the Mat-Su Miners at Hermon Brothers Field.

The competitive Athletes in Action team won two of the games against the Miners.

AIA plays out of Lees Summit, Mo., a suburb of Kansas City. A flier provided by one of the players during the Miners games explains AIA baseball is part of the sports ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

The team currently plays in the MINK League, which stands for Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

This is AIAs first season in the MINK League, and some ABL officials said in interviews they they dont know what sort of contractual arrangements would have to be ironed out to get AIA out of MINK and north to Alaska.

Mike Baxter, general manager for the Peninsula Oilers of Kenai, said AIA approached the league three years ago, and originally was interested in being a traveling team member of the league. That would mean they would always be the visitors, and not have a home field.

He thinks it is a better idea to install Athletes in Action as the team in North Pole.

So does Bill Bartholomew, president of the Miners board of directors.

I wouldnt be opposed to that, Bartholomew said. Id rather have them than Hawaii, because a trip to Hawaii is so expensive.

Baxter agrees, citing the cost of taking an ABL team to the Hawaiian Islands for baseball games. It is also an expensive proposition for the Hawaii Island Movers to be in the ABL, because they must travel to Alaska and stay for a long road trip.

But Baxter said he is looking at AIA as an addition to the team, not as a replacement for Hawaii.

He said that the Hawaii franchise joined the Alaska Baseball league a number of years ago, dropped out for a while, and then came back in. This is the Movers second year back in the league, and the idea was to get everyone to agree they should stay for a few seasons, for the sake of stability.

A report in the June 18 edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner said the AIA general manager has been negotiating for three years with the ABL general managers to join the league.

Baxter and Bartholomew said those talks have been going on for longer than that, but that it has only just recently appeared the discussions might result in Athletes in Action joining the league.

Alaska Goldpanners general manager Don Dennis was quoted as saying the arrangement could start in time for next season.

If AIA joins the ABL, they would play out of North Pole, the newspaper said, but the newspaper said AIA is also looking at locating in the Mat-Su Valley, where the Miners play. AIA manager Courtney Shawley said his teams administrators would prefer North Pole.

So would Bartholomew, who thinks it would be great to have a team in North Pole again. Both he and Baxter minimized the idea of AIA sharing Hermon Brothers Field with the Miners.

The Nicks played in Newby Field, but that facility needs upgrading. The AIA team could play in Growden Field in Fairbanks until Newby is ready.

This year, the ABL teams include the Miners, the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks, the Peninsula Oilers of Kenai, the Glacier Pilots and Bucs, both of Anchorage, and the Hawaii Island Movers. Previous members of the ABL have included Pullman, Wash., and San Francisco, which both joined after North Pole folded.

Baxter said having AIA visit Alaska is a revenue-booster for the teams they play. He said the Alaska summer is too short to play more than about 28 or 30 league games, since the teams require home-and-home series.

The summers just arent long enough for 40 league games, Baxter said.

That means teams such as AIA or the other visitors give the ABL teams a home date, adding to the teams ticket and concessions sales. This year, the Seattle Studs and the Oceanside Waves out of California visited the Miners, as did AIA and the Anchor Town All-Stars out of Anchorage.

Later this summer, the AICHI University team from Japan will visit Hermon Brothers Field.