Prep baseball needs changes

J's World, by Jeremiah Bartz

Baseball could be the red-headed stepchild of Alaska's prep sports.

It is like that forgotten dog that is tied up under the porch of the house next door, the cousin that never makes it onto anyone's Christmas card list or the vegetable dip that never gets eaten at the annual Super Bowl party.

Sometimes without much notice, the season comes and goes. And like fellow prep sports softball and soccer, it comes and goes in a great hurry. Teams normally play about a 10-game season in a span of less than a month. Until this year there was no postseason prep baseball other than the pitiful four-team mock state tourney at the end of the season.

For the first time Region III hosted a postseason tourney. The idea of a tourney is a great one, but the result is a great disappointment. Rather than going the distance and putting on a first-class event, the region opted for a lackluster single elimination tournament, sacrificing more competition for a "lose and you're done" format. Despite great expense in a time when funding for athletics is more scarce than a white rapper on the Def Jam label, teams such as Valdez, Homer and Kodiak traveled long distances to possibly play just one game. The region secured the use of Hermon Brothers Field for a three-day span, so they might as well use it. Remember, baseball is a sport teams can play more than once per day. Other than taking a few extra minutes to draw in the back half of the bracket, the scheduling of a few extra games shouldn't be that mind boggling.

Part of the problem of the new region tourney stems from the anticlimactic state tournament. Though there are more than two dozen prep teams in the state, organizers find it necessary to invite only four to the tournament. The tournament is held in Fairbanks, and again, teams can travel great distances, with great expense, and only play one game. Best case scenario, teams spend the money just to play two games.

Opposition to the expansion of the state baseball tournament has come from the Anchorage American Legion baseball teams. The programs argue an expanded prep baseball season will cut into the legion schedule. At this point the prep baseball season is virtually a pre-season for the Anchorage legion squads.

Regardless of the American Legion schedules, if baseball is to remain a prep sport in the state, changes need to be made. Expansion is needed. Creating a Region III tournament was a move in the right direction, but rather than taking the lackluster approach, organizers should go the distance.

Jeremiah Bartz, (sports@frontiersman.com) is the Frontiersman sports editor.