MARATHON DAY: Bucs, AIA get done at 1:45 a.m. due to delays.
As the sky turned purple and gulls circled overhead looking for scraps at Mulcahy Stadium, Bucs manager Mike Garcia experienced something new early Sunday in a game that's been part of his life for decades.
Baseball at 1:45 in the morning.
The Bucs lost 7-4 to Athletes in Action at the ABL/MLB Showcase, but amid hundreds of games in Garcia's career, the one that spanned both Saturday and Sunday stood out.
The game started at 10:25 p.m., only five minutes earlier than the annual Midnight Sun Game in Fairbanks. Garcia likened it to the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan., and its famous Baseball 'Round the Clock, a 24-hour period of continuous play that includes 17 games in 56 hours.
"The guys, they gave a great effort," Garcia said about his players. "It (baseball) is always physical, but that was more a mental game."
The story of the 7 p.m. start being pushed back more than three hours began with Friday's postponement of the game between the Peninsula Oilers and the Fairbanks Goldpanners that forced a quadruple-header Saturday.
The situation worsened when the postponed game, scheduled to go seven innings, went 10. By the time two more showcase games were over, the Bucs players took the field more than 14 hours after they first arrived at Mulcahy.
They showed up at 8 a.m. to clean the park, then started preparing for their game at 5 p.m. By the first pitch, the players were already tired and had barely eaten, Garcia said.
Still, they battled enough to send the game into extra innings against AIA, which at the time was tied with the Mat-Su Miners atop the Alaska Baseball League standings.
Clay Calfee smacked a bases-clearing triple to pull the Bucs to within one, 4-3, and Gabe Jacobo tied it with a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Fire pushed across three runs in the 10th inning to win in darkness. Bucs general manager Dennis Mattingly said a contingent of fans and most of the 30-plus scouts stuck around.
"Because of the rain and stuff, that's the way it goes," he said.
Mattingly and Garcia both decided to have the Bucs clean the ballpark after the game, so they could sleep in later Sunday morning. They cleared out at about 3:30 a.m. and did not take batting practice or fielding practice before Sunday's game against the Oilers.
Mattingly and long-time Anchorage Glacier Pilots general manager Lefty Van Brunt said it was likely the latest start ever for an ABL game in Anchorage. Several extra-inning games have gone longer, though.
Mattingly remembered a 16-inning affair involving the Fairbanks Goldpanners and Van Brunt recalled a 21-inning tilt between Pilots and a team from Kelowna, British Columbia. Both ended around 2:15 a.m.
Miners 4, AIA 0
Steve Kalush escaped a bases-loaded no-out jam in the bottom of the eighth inning and was the winning pitcher as Mat-Su scored all its runs in the ninth inning to seize first place.
The teams came into the showcase game tied for first.
Kalush came into the game after seven shutout innings from left-handed starter Jared Eskew and allowed two singles and a walk. But he recovered with a strikeout, fielder's choice and fly out to set the table for the Miners hitters.
Joey August hit an RBI triple and Ryan Conan added an RBI double. Two more runs on a sacrifice fly and an AIA error provided insurance.
The Miners' Chris Cullen induced three straight groundouts to end the game.
Bobby Bennett pitched seven shutout innings for AIA, allowing two hits.
Pilots 4, Panners 3
Danny Cox blooped a single into shallow center field for the game-winning walk-off hit Sunday to lift the Pilots over the Goldpanners at the showcase.
The Pilots' Michael Alldredge, normally a starter, pitched a scoreless ninth.
Oilers 5, Bucs 1
Robert Lundy cracked a solo home run Sunday and the Oilers moved to 11-11 with a win in the late showcase game against the Anchorage Bucs.
Find Brian Singler online at adn.com/contact/bsingler or call 257-4335.
