League | National Baseball Congress |
---|---|
Classification | Collegiate summer baseball |
Sport | Baseball |
Founded | 1974 |
President | Chris Beck |
No. of teams | 5 |
Country | United States |
Headquarters | Palmer, Alaska |
Most recent champion(s) | Anchorage Glacier Pilots |
Official website | alaskabaseballleague.org |
The Alaska Baseball League (ABL) is an amateur collegiate summer baseball league based entirely in southern Alaska. Players in the league must have attended one year of college and must have one year of NCAA eligibility remaining.
In the past, the ABL has sent its top teams to compete at the National Baseball Congress (NBC) World Series, where the league's representatives have won multiple championships. Anchorage has won in 1969, 1971, 1986, 1991, and 2001, Fairbanks in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1980, and 2002, Kenai in 1977, 1993, and 1994, and Matsu in 1987 and 1997. League teams have also finished second in several years. [1]
Team | City | Stadium | Capacity |
---|---|---|---|
Anchorage Bucs | Anchorage | Mulcahy Stadium | 3,500 |
Anchorage Glacier Pilots | Anchorage | Mulcahy Stadium | 3,500 |
Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks | Chugiak | Loretta French Park | 600 |
Mat-Su Miners | Palmer | Hermon Brothers Field | 1,700 |
Peninsula Oilers | Kenai | Coral Seymour Memorial Ballpark | 1,300 |
This list of "famous" or "notable" people has no clear inclusion or exclusion criteria . Please help improve this article by defining clear inclusion criteria to contain only subjects that fit those criteria. (November 2021) |
Matanuska-Susitna Borough is a borough located in the U.S. state of Alaska. Its borough seat is Palmer, and the largest community is the census-designated place of Knik-Fairview. As of the 2020 census, the borough's population was 107,801.
Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the population of the city proper at 32,515 and the population of the Fairbanks North Star Borough at 95,655, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in Alaska after Anchorage. The Metropolitan Statistical Area encompasses all of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and is the northernmost Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States, located 196 miles by road south of the Arctic Circle.
Palmer is a city in and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States, located 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway in the Matanuska Valley. It is the ninth-largest city in Alaska, and forms part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city is 5,888, down from 5,937 in 2010.
The Midnight Sun Game is an amateur baseball game played every summer solstice at Growden Memorial Park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. Because the sun is out for almost 24 hours a day, the game starts at about 10:30 at night and completes around 1:30 the next morning. However, because Fairbanks's summer time zone differs by about an hour from local solar time, coupled with the state's observance of daylight saving time, the game may not actually last until solar midnight, at about 1:53. Famous players who have appeared in the game include Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Terry Francona, Harold Reynolds, Jason Giambi, and Bill "Spaceman" Lee.
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The Anchorage Glacier Pilots are a college summer baseball team in Anchorage, Alaska in the United States. They are part of the Alaska Baseball League, and a member of the National Baseball Congress.
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Matanuska-Susitna Valley is an area in Southcentral Alaska south of the Alaska Range about 35 miles (56 km) north of Anchorage, Alaska. It is known for the world record sized cabbages and other vegetables displayed annually in Palmer at the Alaska State Fair. It includes the valleys of the Matanuska, Knik, and Susitna Rivers. 11,000 of Mat-Su Valley residents commute to Anchorage for work . It is the fastest growing region in Alaska and includes the towns of Palmer, Wasilla, Big Lake, Houston, Willow, Sutton, and Talkeetna. The Matanuska-Susitna Valley is primarily the land of the Dena'ina and Ahtna Athabaskan people.
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The Grand Junction Eagles were a collegiate summer baseball team located in Grand Junction, Colorado, founded in 1948, originally sponsored by Eagles Lodge No. 595. The Eagles played many of the best semi-pro teams including the Humboldt Crabs, Alaska Goldpanners, and Anchorage Glacier Pilots, and had multiple appearances in the National Baseball Congress World Series. The Grand Junction Eagles played their last season in 1980. in 1964, the Eagles became the second non-Alaska team to play in the Midnight Sun Game.
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The Western Baseball Association was a collegiate summer baseball league founded in 1967, and later known as the Big West Conference, was composed of teams from across the Pacific Northwest. The WBA, along with the Cape Cod League, was one of the first summer collegiate baseball leagues to be officially certified and supported by the NCAA in 1968, and is the direct predecessor to the well known Alaska Baseball League. The original ceased operation at the end of the 1972 season to make way for the ABL. The league was reformed in 1983 by the Humboldt Crabs, the only original WBA team in the new WBA, and played through the 2000 season.