newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks are going to be a little bit schizophrenic this summer.

That’s because the Goldpanners, who are celebrating their fifth season of amateur baseball, will field two teams in celebration of their 50th season and Alaska’s 50th year of statehood.

One team will play in the Alaska League, while the other team will take part in the “Alaska 50 Tour” a barnstorming trip that will culminate with a ceremonial game to kick off the 75th National Baseball Congress Tournament on Aug. 1 in Wichita, Kan.

The team playing in the Alaska League will be the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks, while the barnstorming team will be known as the Midnight Sun Goldpanners.

Goldpanners general manager Don Dennis announced the team’s intentions on Monday morning.

“It is the Goldpanners’ 50th season and the 75th year of the National Baseball Congress Tournament, so we have combined forces to celebrate the two events,” Dennis said in a press release.

The Alaska 50 Tour opens with a tournament in Kamloops, British Columbia, and continues through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and ends with a week-long visit to Kansas.

The grand finale will be a ceremonial game between the Panners and the Liberal, Kan., BeeJays, two of the most storied teams in the history of the NBC tournament.

“A lot of the design of the trip is to hit old teams that we’ve played over the years or teams that have an Alaska connection,” Dennis said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening. “The whole idea is to make this a nostalgic thing.”

Much of the nostalgia will culminate in the Aug. 1 game to open the NBC Tournament. Dennis said that he is trying to line up as many as 40 former Goldpanners for the game.

Dennis said he already has commitments from Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, Bill Lee, Phil Stephenson and Bud Hollowell.

When Hollowell suits up for the Aug. 1 game as a bench coach, he’ll become the second person in the history of the team to participate in all five decades. Hollowell played for the Goldpanners in 1964 and 1983, coached in 1976 and 1997 and plans to coach again in Wichita.

Dennis is the other Goldpanner involved in all five decades. He has been the team’s general manager since 1967.

The Midnight Sun Goldpanners will consist of players who don’t sign professional contracts following the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft in June, players who might not be available to play on the Alaska League team in June and former Goldpanners.

The team will be managed by Jim Dietz, with his son Steve and Fairbanksan Randy Barber, who has spent recent summers coaching baseball in the Czech Republic.

“It’s going to be a blast,” Dennis said. “It’s a chance for Dietz and I to relive old times.”

The team will gather on July 6 in Longview, Wash., and work out at Lower Columbia College for a couple of days before traveling to Kamloops for the 47th Kamloops International Tournament.

Following the tournament, it’s on to Kelowna, B.C., for a three-game series with the Kelowna Falcons. That’s followed by a stop in Spokane to play the River Hawks. The team also will play games in Spokane, Wash., Belgrade, Mont., Beatrice, Neb., Clarinda, Iowa, and the Kansas towns of Dodge City, Junction City, Hays, Liberal, El Dorado and Derby.

In its travels, the team also will see parts of Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Missouri and Colorado.

“There might be some long travel days in there,” Dennis said with a chuckle. “It’s going to take a special kind of kid to be on this team.”

Dennis said the Goldpanners are counting on winning either the tournament in Kamloops ($10,000) or the NBC tournament in Wichita ($25,000) to cover the costs of the month-long trip.

If that doesn’t happen?

“We’ll do some gerrymandering and figure out some way to pay it off,” Dennis said.

More information on the upcoming Alaska Goldpanners season and the 2009 Midnight Sun Game will be published later this week.