Miners will not play Panners in ’11

PALMER — During the final game of the 2010 Alaska Baseball League regular season, the Mat-Su Miners used a win over the Alaska Goldpanners to clinch the ABL title. It was also the last time the Miners will play the Fairbanks-based team for at least a year.

Late last month, the team announced on its website that the Panners will play a condensed schedule in 2011 and will be recognized as an adjunct member of the ABL. The Panners will also not play the Miners in 2011.

“It’s unbelievable,” Mat-Su Miners general manager Pete Christopher said recently. “It’s upsetting that they’re going through this troubled time. It’s bad for the league.”

According to latest draft of the 2011 ABL schedule, the Panners will play the ABL rival Anchorage Bucs, Peninsula Oilers and Athletes in Action Fire. Alaska is also scheduled to play in a number of non-league games, and a six-day tournament in Canada.

According to a press release found on the team website, the shortened schedule is because the team is, “facing continuing red ink.”

“The club is not close to facing bankruptcy, it is merely shoring up finances ahead of 2012 operations,” Alaska general manager Don Dennis wrote in the statement on the website.

Dennis could not be reached by phone.

Cuts to the Alaska schedule included any Goldpanner visits to Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer. Christopher said if the Panners can’t make a trip to the Valley, the Miners can’t afford to go to Fairbanks.

Since the Goldpanners changed their schedule, Christopher said he added one non-league game to the Miners’ schedule, but the team still has 15 days off during the two-month season.

“We had 11 last year and that was too much,” Christopher said.

The Miners do have 21 home games on the schedule.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Follow him at Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.