Miners skipper reaches another milestone

PALMER — Now in his sixth season as the field skipper for the Mat-Su Miners, Ben Taylor has enjoyed success.

Teamed with longtime Mat-Su general manager Pete Christopher, Taylor and company have led the Miners to the Alaska Baseball League championship series in each of the last four years, and back-to-back ABL titles. The Mat-Su bench boss has also reached a number of career milestones. Earlier this month, he added another to the list. With a 6-0 victory over the Chugiak Chinooks July 2 at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer, Taylor earned his 300th win as a summer collegiate amateur baseball head coach.

“It’s a real thrill.” Taylor said recently. “It means I’ve got to be around a lot of great baseball players.”

Taylor already held the Miners record for career wins as a head coach. He set that mark in 2016, passing for Miners field general Jim Fleming, who posted a 102-54 mark from 1985-87. Taylor has 172 wins with the Miners, as of a 7-5 victory over the Peninsula Oilers Friday.

“I blessed the bulk of them have been up here as a Mat-Su Miner,” Taylor said. “There’s no place I’d rather coach than the Valley.”

Taylor said his relationship with Christopher is key.

“One of the things you love as a coach is you don’t have to second-guess yourself,” Taylor said. “When your general manager and you organization believes in you it’s easy.”

Taylor said the working relationship with Christopher and the team, as well as the blueprint the Miners have design, lead to the win totals.

“We’ve got a formula that really works,” Taylor said.

The win totals are also piling up for Christopher, who is in his 16th season as general manager. A 6-3 win over the Oilers Wednesday marked Mat-Su’s 425th victory during his tenure.

In addition to his gig with the Miners, Taylor is also the associate head coach at Chandler-Gilbert College in Arizona, a program that competes in one of the best junior college conferences in the nation, the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference. Prior to spending his summers in Palmer, Taylor became the all-time winningest head coach in the Texas Collegiate League, winning 136 games with the East Texas Pump Jacks.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.