New book has plenty of baseball stories from Alaska

Baseball is a game of stories. Long stories, maybe with a point, usually not with some hilarious punch line, and the best ones take about half an inning.

Lew Freedman, a sports columnist for the Brand X paper in Anchorage, tells 29 nifty stories in his newest book, Diamonds in the Rough; Baseball Stories from Alaska (Epicenter Press, copyright 2000, 15 bucks at the Mulcahy Field concessions stand, probably available lots of places but I do not do free ads).

Freedman is not an edge-of-the-seat yarn spinner, or a rhetoricist who uplifts the language to distracting heights. He doe not use a lot of fancy words. But he evidently has talked to every person who has ever gone to an ABL game, has a keen recall of mileposts along the ABL highway and left this Alaska newcomer enthralled.

I knew baseball was big up here, but I did not understand the reasons behind it. I did not understand how it became a tradition to use college players. I did not know there were so many National Baseball Congress World Series titles in Alaska.

All of that, and much more, is explained in neat categories in Freedmans book. I aint much of a book reviewer (duh) and I generally like everything written about baseball, but I would have had some suggestions on organizing the chapters a bit differently. There is no real sense of chronology, because he focuses on teams and players more than dates. But there is no satisfying sense of the teams and players, because he skips around too much Glacier Pilots to Oilers to Miners to Goldpanners and back.

But hey, he wrote it, got it published and might even autograph my copy if I am ever lucky enough to be admitted into a press box.

If you like baseball and live in Alaska, this is a great book if for no other reason than the snippets that Freedman provides about all the lore.

The most satisfying part of Freedmans book is that most of it takes place inside the foul lines.

There are plenty of stories about the travel, the slick and silly promotions, the whole Alaska experience.

But, mostly it is about games and players. For instance, he relegates the years when the ABL was divided into two bickering leagues to a single chapter, late in the book. It was as if he felt obligated to explain the infighting that nearly destroyed the ABL, but he did not want to dwell on it.

Good call.

To Freedman, as is obvious in his book, Alaska baseball is the people involved.

What people? Im glad you asked. Here are some of the people featured in Diamonds in the Rough, so try to figure out who they are. Hint: Think big, think really big, as in huge.

Mystery Player 1: Hes listed officially as a former member of the Alaska Goldpanners, the ABL team in Fairbanks. But because he chose summer school over summer baseball, he only played in the NBC World Series, the season-ending championship tournament in Wichita. Freedman said he seems destined for the Hall of Fame.

Mystery Player 2: One person said that he could throw the ball 218 miles per hour, but he had no idea where it was going. Oh, this one is too easy. It is Randy Johnson, who spent half a season with the Anchorage Glacier Pilots in 1984, before arm troubles sent him home.

Mystery Player 3: He won the ABLs so-called best game ever with a ninth-inning home run that broke up a no-hitter … oh, this one is also too easy. It is Mark McGwire of the 1982 Glacier Pilots.

Mystery Player 4: With the Goldpanners in 1971, he went on a camping and fishing trip and learned he was afraid of bears. He came back a second summer for the Goldpanners, and starred in the NBC World Series. He also hit safely 3,110 times in the big leagues.

Mystery Player 5: He served up Mark McGwires 62nd home run of the 1998 season but is mysteriously missing from the books list of Mat-Su Miners who made it to the big leagues.

Give up? Barry Bonds was signed up with the Goldpanners for, evidently, more than one season, but stayed Outside to work on his college degree (also a worthy pursuit). When he did play for the Panners, he showed up on the last day of the season and then accompanied the team to Wichita. Dave Winfield played for the Goldpanners, survived the bear encounter and went on to climb to the 3,000-hit plateau in Major League Baseball.

The player left out of the otherwise great index-style appendix in Freedmans book? Steve Trachsel, who played for the Miners in 1990.

Why did I focus on Trachsel? Because the first time I met Stan Zaborac, I asked him to list his most memorable players, the ones who really hustled for the Miners. He said he thought Trachsel was the player he liked the best.

Stan Zaborac is mentioned several times in Freedmans book. In one chapter, about the ill-fated Valley Green Giants, Freedman explains how the teams name was just not getting the job done.

He writes, Soon enough, no more would be heard of the Valley Green Giants at all. Zaborac, though, emerged as the savior of Palmer baseball.

Buy this book.

Lew Pumphrey can be reached by e-mail at LewPumphrey@excite.com.