ROAD WARRIOR

WASILLA — Patrick Fitzgerald is a Road Warrior.

Fitzgerald, an incoming senior at Susitna Valley High School, hits the George Parks Highway nearly every day making the 58-mile trip from his home in Talkeetna to Lou McManus Field in Wasilla to play American Legion baseball for the Alaska Road Warriors.

That’s about a 120-mile road trip, just to satisfy his urge to play the sport he loves.

“Baseball’s my vice, come out on the field, forget about everything else, play for two to three hours,” Fitzgerald said after a team practice last week. “You don’t have to worry about stuff going on outside the diamond.”

Fitzgerald is in his fourth season with the Road Warriors. The center field for the program’s ‘A’ squad also played for the Houston Hawks varsity program for the first time during the spring, thanks to a co-op rule recently adopted by the Alaska Schools Activities Association. That’s a lot of miles on the highway, but the daily commute is a trip the 17-year-old gladly makes.

“A day I don’t have baseball is pretty rare,” Fitzgerald said.

The Road Warriors typically practice and play their games in the evenings. In the mornings, Fitzgerald works as a guide on river float trips in the Talkeetna area.

“That’s a huge help. It pays pretty high, helps with the gas,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s not like we’re driving around a hybrid. I’ve got a really old 1990 truck. It’s high on fuel.”

With the help of his parents, Fitzgerald has been making the trip to Wasilla to play baseball when he was 9 years old. Fitzgerald has an uncle who played college baseball, and his family has always stayed active, he said. He remembers playing T-ball with his dad in the backyard, and when he was 9, his family began bringing him to Wasilla to play Little League.

“One day my mom and dad asked, ‘you want to go to Wasilla?’” Fitzgerald said. “Definitely big props to them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pay them back.”

Fitzgerald stayed involved in the Wasilla youth league before graduating to the American Legion program four years ago, but this was the first season he was able to play high school baseball.

Susitna Valley does not have a baseball team, but ASAA recently approved a rule that allows students from small schools to participate in a sport at the nearest small school if their school does not have that sport.

Fitzgerald said Houston High School activities director Norm Bouchard, HHS baseball coach Bill Kramer and Myrl Thompson, the head coach of the Road Warriors ‘A” program all helped him get involved with the Hawks baseball program.

“With high school ball, I get the same kind of start the other guys do,” Fitzgerald said. “After Little League, I wasn’t really playing much before Legion started. I was pretty amped to go down and kind of get things started a little bit earlier, and be at the same pace as a lot of these guys in the Lower Valley.”

Sports and recreation tend to be a big part of Fitzgerald’s life. He’s the captain of the Susitna Valley varsity hockey team and he coaches peewee hockey in his hometown.

“I’ve definitely been in the sports scene in Talkeetna for a long time,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said he loves baseball and hockey.

“I’m just glad they fall in different seasons,” Fitzgerald said. “I love hockey, but I think if I had to choose, it’d probably be baseball.”

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