Alaska Arms: The best pitchers on the 49th State All-Star team

Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

So many great baseball players have passed through Alaska, before, during or after their careers afield. Some scattered gems were born here. Far more young players spent a summer or more honing their craft on amateur Alaska teams, like the Alaska Goldpanners and Anchorage Glacier Pilots. And a few established stars made their own way north, playing or otherwise performing for Alaskans desperate for diversions. There is no better way to organize this history, no more unassailable method of presenting this lineage, than in an imaginary team roster. Who could argue with a sports column featuring arbitrary restrictions and rankings?

This is the second in a two-part series. The first part covered the hitters. The position player starters are Tom Sullivan, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Frankie Frisch, Graig Nettles, Dave Winfield, Mickey Mantle, and Barry Bonds, with Mark McGwire as the designated hitter. The backups are Coen Niclai, Michael Young, Josh Donaldson, Jeff Kent and Aaron Judge. This second part covers the pitchers.

[Introducing the 49th State All-Stars: Here’s a collection of the best baseball players to set foot in Alaska]

The rules here are simple. A player must have set foot in Alaska but not necessarily played here. Players must have played a significant portion of their career at the given position, even if they did not play that position in Alaska. Accommodations are thus made for legends. Roster limits are those of the modern major leagues, 26 players including no more than 13 pitchers. For those players who played in Alaska, their team is noted in parentheses.

The game-one starter for any series would be Satchel Paige. He was a pitching star of the pre-integration Negro Leagues and a two-time major league All-Star despite not debuting in the majors until he was 41. Or there about. Paige was a serial liar when it came to his age. As he put it, “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” When his major league career ended after the 1953 season, he spent more than a decade as a traveling attraction for minor league and exhibition games, a guaranteed draw and public sensation for whichever team was willing to hire him. Come 1965, it was Anchorage’s turn.

Future President Richard Nixon happened to arrive at the Anchorage International Airport at about the same time as Paige. Nixon was on his way east on a somewhat secret diplomatic mission to Vietnam and was surprised by the streamers and balloons there. He thought his trip’s details had been leaked, but the people did not care about him. They were there for Paige. They managed a moment together where they shook hands. Nixon declared, “I’ve always wanted to greet a celebrity.”

That August, Paige pitched in four games at Mulcahy Stadium against local military and all-star teams. In his first game, the 58-year-old needed only 22 pitches for three shutout innings. His mixture of arm angles and trademark hesitation pitch baffled the local soldiers and insurance salesmen. And when not pitching, he glad-handed around the stadium, signing autographs.

Then, he stunned everyone with the announcement that he would play for and manage an amateur Anchorage team beginning in 1966. The Earthquakers was the topical choice for the name, and they were to represent Anchorage across the country. This was, of course, before the Glacier Pilots were founded in 1969. But Paige never returned to Alaska, and the Earthquakers never played a single game. This was in keeping with his style. He was quite willing to make an innocent empty promise if it made people cheer. Instead of playing for Anchorage again, he made one more surprising major league appearance just a few weeks later, tossing three scoreless innings for the Kansas City Athletics. Six years later, he was the first former Negro League star elected to the Hall of Fame.

The other four starting rotation members are Hall of Famer Tom Seaver (Goldpanners), Hall of Famer Randy Johnson (Glacier Pilots), Bill Tompkins, and Curt Schilling. As of 1964, after a year playing at a community college, Seaver was promising but not exactly a phenom. The head coach at the University of Southern California offered him a scholarship contingent on proving himself with the Goldpanners.

Due to Marine Corps Reserve obligations, Seaver joined the team with the season in progress. More precisely, he landed in Fairbanks with a game in progress and was given just enough time to change into a uniform before heading to the dugout. Goldpanners founder H. A. “Red” Boucher shook his hand and told him to warm up in the bullpen. With no consideration for his travel fatigue, Seaver was thrown into the fire. He relieved the starter and went five innings, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out five and picking up the win.

In his 1986 biography, “Seaver,” he recalled, “Alaska was something else. You simply can’t realize what a magnificent place it is unless you’ve been there. And it’s a lot different than most people picture it.” Before his stint in Fairbanks, he was very much one of those people with misconceptions about Alaska. “I can remember my first trip there. I expected it to be so cold. I wore a heavy sweater and a topcoat as I got off the plane. But Mrs. Boucher, who met me at the airport, was just wearing a sleeveless dress.”

As with nearly all the transplants, the long days took some getting used to. “I can remember waking up one night at three o’clock,” said Seaver. “I saw the sun coming in through the windows, and my first thought was that I’d overslept and I would be late for my day’s work. I was a groundskeeper. I’d cut the grass and water the infield.”

Seaver played for the Goldpanners in 1964 and 1965. Two years later, he played in an All-Star game en route to the 1967 Rookie of the Year award. Two years after that, he won a World Series with the New York Mets. And in 1992, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

When Randy Johnson played for the Glacier Pilots in 1984, he was years away from the dominant pitcher he would become. He was one of many young pitchers with a live arm but lacking all the control necessary to employ it effectively. Per Glacier Pilots coach Jack O’Toole, “He could throw the ball 218 mph, but he had no idea where it was going.” He added, “If I were the opposing manager, I’d tell my players not to swing.”

In his 2000 book, “Diamonds in the Rough: Baseball Stories from Alaska,” sportswriter Lew Freedman offered an illuminating story about the lanky lefthander. At 6 feet, 10 inches, Johnson was the tallest player in major league history when he debuted, a record since broken. As such, he wasn’t exactly made to fit comfortably in the modest Glacier Pilots team bus. For away games where he was scheduled to start, someone with the team would drive him in their car instead.

More than just a raw athlete, he was a young guy figuring out his way in the world. Some edges would be smoothed. Some life lessons would be learned. For example, it’s important to always pack enough socks. One day, Glacier Pilots coach Lefty Van Brunt had the chore of driving Johnson to Fairbanks for a game. As Van Brunt recalled, “He rode with his feet out the window the whole way. He didn’t have a pair of socks. He was barefoot. I told him they’d get windburned. I had to give him a pair of mine. They barely covered his heel.” By the time they reached Fairbanks, “those socks were just covered with bugs. I don’t know what he would have done with bare feet. He wouldn’t have been able to walk.”

Bill Tompkins (1930-2001) — his Tlingit name was Hin’Sheesh — was the first great Alaska sports prospect. He was an Anchorage high school baseball and basketball star in the late 1940s. In 1950, local fans donated money to send him to Atlanta for a tryout with the minor league Crackers team.

For a moment, let’s consider this journey. Perhaps the defining aspect of the territory then was its cultural and physical isolation. Alaska was still three years away from its first television stations. A young Alaska Native guy, surely sheltered in many ways from the realities of life in the Lower 48, traveled all the way from Anchorage to the Deep South to play for a team called the Atlanta Crackers, who were not coincidentally part of a strictly segregated league. In fact, the Southern Association disbanded in 1961 without ever integrating. For Tompkins, this was not a mere trip but an expedition into a foreign land. He passed through thousands of miles of unfamiliar terrain; He was more an astronaut than anything else.

A dispute over his eligibility doomed his attempt with the Crackers, though he did play that year for two North Carolina teams. Thus, Tompkins became the first Alaska Native man to play in an MLB-affiliated minor league. Through the 1950s, he also played for minor league teams in Washington state, Louisiana, and Canada. Tompkins returned to Alaska and remained an active basketball and softball player and coach until his 2001 passing in Juneau.

As of this writing, Schilling is one of only 12 players born in Alaska who have reached the major leagues. With 569 regular season appearances, he holds the record for most games by a player born in Alaska, 104 more than designated hitter/first baseman Josh Phelps. That said, the self-proclaimed “Army brat” and six-time MLB All-Star was born in Anchorage but raised Outside. Phelps, likewise, was born in Anchorage but grew up elsewhere, Idaho in his case.

The starting staff is strong enough that this theoretical team carries fewer pitchers than a major league team. In addition, while there are several other standout pitchers with Alaska connections, there is a dropoff in quality compared to legends like Paige, Seaver, Johnson, Schilling, or someone as historic as Tompkins. The rest of the pitching staff is mostly rounded out by overqualified starters pushed into relief roles with Bill “Spaceman” Lee (Goldpanners), Randy Jones (Glacier Pilots), Dave Stieb (Peninsula Oilers), Frank Viola (Oilers), Jimmy Key (Oilers), and Jered Weaver (Anchorage Bucs). These six pitchers combined for 2 Cy Young awards — Jones and Viola — and 20 All-Star appearances.

Lee played for the Goldpanners in 1966 and 1967, including starting the 1967 Midnight Sun game against a Japanese national team. He pitched in the majors from 1969 to 1982 and was an All-Star in 1973 for the Boston Red Sox. Then, he returned to start another Midnight Sun game in 2008. He lost in 1967 and won in 2008.

The last spot in the bullpen goes to Jerome Johnson. In 1971, the Philadelphia Phillies drafted him out of Fairbanks’ Ben Eielson High School, making him the first MLB-drafted Alaskan. He played in the minors from 1971 to 1975, with a comeback in 1978.

Honorable mentions for pitchers begin with Don August of the Anchorage Bucs, who, in 1982, started the greatest baseball game in Alaska history. He lost a no-hitter in the ninth inning from a Mark McGwire solo blast for the Glacier Pilots. The two would later play together on the 1984 Olympic team.

The other honorable mentions for pitchers are Steve Howe (Glacier Pilots), Rick Aguilera (Glacier Pilots), Dan Plesac (Goldpanners), Bobby Thigpen (Glacier Pilots), Jeff Brantley (Mat-Su Miners), Eddie Guardado (Glacier Pilots), Heath Bell (Bucs), Chad Bentz, and James Paxton (Glacier Pilots). Bentz graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School in 1999 and played 40 games for the Montreal Expos from 2004 to 2005.

In total, the pitching staff features starters Satchel Paige, Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Bill Tompkins, and Curt Schilling. The bullpen is comprised of Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Randy Jones, Dave Stieb, Frank Viola, Jimmy Key, Jered Weaver, and Jerome Johnson.

Theoretical games for this theoretical team would also feature entertainment from some of the best baseball entertainers, talents who have performed across the country, from the biggest major league stadiums to, well, Alaska. Max Patkin. The Famous Chicken, aka San Diego Chicken. Morganna the Kissing Bandit. They all made at least one trip north.

Patkin (1920-1999) was a baseball clown, the last true practitioner in a long lineage. Thin and practically engulfed in his oversized jersey, he contorted, mocked, and bounced alongside games for 50 years. He also had a cameo as himself in the 1988 Kevin Coster film “Bull Durham.” In 1987, he appeared at Growden Park for the Alaska Goldpanners.

The explosion in modern sports mascots, the fact that almost every team employs one, is due to Ted Giannoulas. The human inside the oversized chicken suit began his fowl career in 1974 and was an instant sensation that inspired a wave of copycats and descendants. He visited Alaska several times from the 1980s into the 2000s.

Then there is Morganna Roberts. The Kissing Bandit was an especially well-endowed woman who would rush the field and kiss players. For those who think stunts for social media attention represent some sort of new behavior, she was a celebrity for this and nothing else. Her career in banditry began in 1969 when she hopped the fence at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field and kissed Pete Rose, who responded with profanity. Other notable victims included George Brett (twice), Nolan Ryan, Johnny Bench, and Cal Ripken Jr.

In her earlier years as the Kissing Bandit, she was repeatedly arrested for trespassing, but as time passed and her fame grew, teams increasingly partnered with her to create fan-titillating incidents. In 1989, the Alaska Goldpanners and Anchorage Bucs brought her north. On July 28, she intervened in Fairbanks and kissed Goldpanners third baseman Pat Meares while he was batting. The next night, she did the same at a Bucs game in Anchorage, striking upon right fielder Dean Haskins.

Meares would play nine years in the majors, primarily for the Minnesota Twins. On the encounter with Morganna, he said, “It was great. She kind of surprised me. I had my head down and when I looked up, there she was. It was fun, but I think it kind of jinxed me because I struck out.”

Key sources:

Caulfield, Stan. “Panners Split Over Weekend, Win Series 4-2.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 20, 1964, 8.

Eley, Bob. “Rees Tosses First Panner Shutout.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June 29, 1989, 9.

“Eskimo Wants to Put Dixie in Deep Freeze.” [South Carolina] Columbia Record, February 16, 1950, 43.

Freedman, Lew. Diamonds in the Rough: Baseball Stories from Alaska. Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press, 2000.

Martin, Danny. “Road to the Majors.” Anchorage Daily News, July 11, 1993, K18-K19.

McDonald, Tim. “Kissing Bandit Strikes.” Anchorage Daily News, June 30, 1989, G-1, G-6.

“Paige Says He’ll Boss Anchorage Earthquakers.” Anchorage Daily Times, August 27, 1965, 18.

Schoor, Gene. Seaver. Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1986.

Sweeney, John M. “Patkin is the Last of a Breed.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 22, 1987, 25, 28.

Tye, Larry. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend. New York: Random House, 2009.

“William ‘Bill’ Tompkins obituary.” Anchorage Daily News, September 26, 2001, B9.

“Wilson Gets Tompkins.” Durham Sun, April 4, 1950, 11.