Miners season comes to rainy, agonizing end; Weather denies Mat-Su a chance to play for the 2024 ABL championship

Due to an astoundingly unlucky run of weather, the 2024 Alaska Baseball League championship has been completely washed away.

It’s no one’s fault, at least not directly. Mat-Su could have prevented it by winning a few more games during the regular season to ensure the final series would be played in Palmer (although even then the weather may very well have ruined it anyway), while Anchorage could have, I suppose, built a stadium with better drainage or a dome or something of that nature. In truth, of course, this was completely unpreventable for anyone. That does little to dampen the sting of it, though.

By virtue of their superior regular season record, the Anchorage Bucs are the official champions of the 2024 iteration of the ABL, their ninth title in franchise history and first since 2019. The Miners finish in second place for the third straight year, never even having gotten a chance to end their now eight-year title drought.

With the season ending the same way it began – with a road contest against the Bucs being rained out – the cast of the Miners now begin their journey to their respective homes all across the country, forever carrying with them the memories they made and relationships they formed. Meanwhile, those fans who call the Mat-Su Valley home continue to wait for the day when all the elements align to return the Miners to their former glory.

That exiting cast includes me. Along with Dylan Simmons, my companion in the press box for all but the final week of the season, it has been our honor to document the story of the 2024 Mat-Su Miners for all to read. We hope that someday, even though the team wasn’t able to reach the mountaintop, or even able to attempt to, those interested can peruse the articles and content we have made and get a comprehensive idea of the collective journey that all the players, coaches, and members of the Miners organization undertook during the summer of 2024, and give them the recognition and praise they so infinitely deserve.