[Elendil]

Sitka vs. Juneau

The new popularity of Alaskan League baseball in the panhandle was a boon for Juneau, but Sitka management considered it a threat. After the departure of Ketchikan, Sitka had seen an opportunity to take control of the whole southern panhandle market. Juneau's success was now making that whole plan very difficult to carry out. Even the Native American fanbase wasn't a given for Sitka any longer, due to the popularity of Juneau pitcher Scott Northeast, the league's most visible Native face.

Sitka was on the upswing of a rebuilding cycle, and they decided to make a big impact in the free agent market this offseason, as a way of heading off the Juneau challenge. They also pre-emptively expanded their ballpark by 250 seats after Chugiak and Bethel announced their plans to do the same. Taking up the challenge, Juneau also added about 200 seats to the Ballpark at Auke Bay, curving around the leftfield fence. When all was said and done, the smallest ballparks remaining in the league were in Kodiak and Whitehorse, both seating 1,200.

Who would win over the hearts and minds of panhandle fans in 2012: the "brown" (Sitka) or the "blue" (Juneau)?

Reorganization of the Alaskan Training League

In recognition of the new popularity of the sport in the panhandle, as well as the expansion of the league eastward into Yukon Territory, the league decided to reorganize its amateur affiliate, the ATL. Now, six teams would hail from the panhandle region, and the other six would come from the mainland. Each region would have its own division, and teams would play an unbalanced schedule of 64 games, still on weekends only.

The mainland teams would be (affiliations in parentheses): West Anchorage (ERC), Fairbanks (FAI), Wasilla (MSM), Seward (PEN), Cook Inlet (AGP), and Valdez (BET). The panhandle teams would be: Dawson City (WHI), Douglas (JUN), Ketchikan (SIT), Skagway (NPN), Petersburg (ANC), and Wrangell (KOD).

2011-12 Free Agents

The biggest free agents on the market this year would be as follows, in no particular order (team losing player in parentheses) (followed by last year's stats):

* SP Pete Strelioff (ANC) (10-8, 3.96)
* LF Sean Heath (BET) (.280/.369/.461, age 25)
* RF Luc Trudel (FAI) (.338/.416/.460, age 26)
* C Bob Russo (JUN) (.245/.309/.363, age 26 - major down year)
* SP Will Blain (MSM) (7-6, 4.14, age 26)
* SS-3B Sloan Starr (NPN) (.271/.351/.448)
* OF John Fox (SIT) (.289/.349/.445, 37-14 SB-CS, age 25)
* 2B Ralph Hearn (SIT) (.342/.405/.552, age 25)
* 1B Dale Robison (NPN) (.252/.347/.369, 31-11 SB-CS, age 22)

Additionally, the following players from the Lower 48 were trying their luck in Alaska this year:

* OF Francis Ikarashi hit .309/.414/.464 in A-ball last year and had made it as high as AAA
* 2B Charley Logan hit .270/.336/.370 in AA last year and was solid defensively

It was rather a small class of players, but an equally small group of teams was likely to compete for them: Sitka, Chugiak, and the Anchorage Bucs especially. Fairbanks and the Glacier Pilots were still too mired in debt even to sign extensions with their existing players, but they had hardly anyone left of interest to anyone else.