Tim Barto: Oilers’ withdraw from 2025 season in Alaska Baseball League

By TIM BARTO            

Last Thursday, the Peninsula Oilers announced they will take a year to yearlong pause and not field a team in 2025. The Oilers are one of five teams in the Alaska Baseball League and, while their temporary departure is not a surprise, it exemplifies concern for the future of the league.

The league schedule was just about to be announced when the Oilers informed the other  four teams – the Mat-Su Miners, Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks, Anchorage Glacier Pilots, and Anchorage Bucs – of their decision, but now that schedule will have to be revamped. The state’s sixth college summer team, the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks, has not been a part of the league since 2015, although team president John Lohrke was hoping his club could be readmitted. 

Lohrke has done a tremendous job pulling the Goldpanners back from extinction. Attendance was dismal and the ballpark was in disarray, but now fans are filling the stands in Fairbanks and the team’s finances are in the black. 

The four remaining ABL teams can go one of two ways. If they want to remain a prosperous league, one that is still among the top ten summer college leagues in the country, they need to act as a cohesive unit with a strong commissioner leading them. The second option is to essentially go their own ways, making their own team schedules and business arrangements.

As someone who has been intimately involved with the Chinooks for the better part of a decade, this writer is selfishly hoping the teams band together and form a strong league. The Chinooks are structured differently than the other teams and a strong, centralized league it is the best scenario for the fish as they don’t have the financial wherewithal to negotiate with Lower 48 teams when it comes to scheduling games and making the necessary travel arrangements to and from Alaska. 

The major obstacle to a cohesive, unified league is getting the individual general managers to relinquish control and allow a commissioner to make decisions that are in the league’s best interests. There is an attitude that what works for their own team is what’s best for the other teams, especially when past success clouds the reality of the present.

The Oilers’ precarious financial situation has been known for several years. Just before the start of the 2024 season, the team let go of their general manager and issued a public notice that they faced a “significant financial challenge.” Their plan for 2025 is to find creative fundraising schemes that will put them in good enough shape to return in 2026. It will take hard work and serious negotiations, and perhaps some downright pleading, with sponsors and donors to be successful.

One seemingly untapped resource for the Oilers, as well as all the other teams, is their alumni. Many professional players spent summers up here, and quite a few of those made it to the Major League level where generous salaries are the norm. Most of the men who played in Alaska during their college years have fond memories of those years, and they seem to be an untapped resource, a veritable Prudhoe Bay income stream.

Another option is one that former ABL Commissioner Chip Dill was just beginning to negotiate:  joining forces with Major League Baseball. The major leagues cut ties with many of their minor league affiliates a few years ago but made deals with summer college leagues, and those leagues are succeeding, if for no other reason than those college baseball players eyeing a shot at getting drafted have been flocking to the MLB-affiliated leagues because that is a way to be seen by professional scouts. The ABL used to hold scout weekends, during which a majority of major league teams sent scouts with radar guns and stat sheets in hand. During 2024’s scout weekend, it was difficult to spot any such creatures.

The second option for the remaining teams, that of foregoing a strong league in favor independent scheduling and finances, is the John Lohrke model:  reinvigorate the community around the team as a wholesome and inexpensive form of family entertainment; find business leaders who are willing to help refurbish faded stadium infrastructure; use the lauded history of Alaska baseball to show continuity with the teams of today; and make it unabashedly fun to attend baseball games.

Both options will take dedicated efforts to succeed, especially the latter; but foregoing a centralized league does not mean the Alaska teams will not play each other. They absolute should, often and with great fanfare. Ironically, if the teams go their own ways but cooperate in bringing Lower 48 teams – and hopefully international teams, such as from Japan, Korea, or Australia – they will be helping out each other. Scheduling non-Alaska team to travel up here will make more financial sense if the teams can stay for more than just a short series against one team.

The Peninsula Oilers fielded baseball teams for 50 years, and it is sad to think that half century of community support and entertainment is coming to an end. It will be an even sadder development if Alaska loses its remaining teams. 

Tim Barto is a regular contributor to Must Read Alaska, vice president of Alaska Family Council, and a diehard Chinooks fan who wants to see all the summer college teams in Alaska succeed.