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By Mark Saxon, Sun Staff Writer

Fish processing plant advertisements begin flooding college newspapers in late April. The text may vary, but these classified pied pipers all promise students the chance to make a year’s tuition over the summer while working at an exciting job in Alaska.

Former Kofa standout and current ASU outfielder Rocky Laguna, however, will not be gutting salmon for his supper this summer when he makes the 12-hour trek to the Last Frontier — he’ll be playing baseball.

Laguna will take two flights and a “puddle hopper” pontoon plane on Monday to rejoin the Peninsula Oilers as they begin their Alaskan Baseball League schedule.

Rocky Laguna, wearing his Peninsula Oilers hat, will play a third summer in the Alaskan Baseball League. Sun photo/Jacob Lopez

“I can’t get over the fact that I’m going to be in Alaska in a week and how far up north I will be,” Laguna said Tuesday as he visited Desert Sun Stadium while enjoying a rare respite from competitive baseball. “I don’t know how (a league) ended up in Alaska, but the weather is so great and the towns where teams are located are usually small towns. It’s really a community thing so I think that’s what they had in mind.”

The ABL runs each summer from June through August and provides college players with a chance to hone their skills during the offseason. Laguna said the level of play in the six-team league is similar to that of the Golden Baseball League showcased by the Scorpions.

The Oilers charge admission, sell beer at games and follow the custom of minor league baseball by busing the team on 500-plus mile trips to Fairbanks. Cramped quarters aside, Laguna is just glad to be playing.

“It’s going to be great to go out and play every day again and get some (at-bats) and try and get better,” said Laguna, who was relegated to being a role player this past season at ASU after batting .283 and making 29 starts in 2005. “I’ll try to take that experience in Alaska with me into next fall with ASU and hopeful I’ll be rolling good and catch a spot in the lineup again next season.”

Last summer, Laguna had an extended stay in Omaha, Neb., as the Sun Devils fought to a third-place finish in the College World Series and he could not join the Oilers until July.

But this season, the Sun Devils were ousted early by Baylor in the Regionals, giving Laguna more time to make an impact with the Kenai-based squad.

Before he can report for a third season with the Oilers, however, he must first check in at his summer residence — the remote log cabin of his host family, Mike and Dianna Tice.

“When they first took me to their house, we drove down dirt roads and you see moose off to the side of the road,” he said. “I walked in and they had this big old polar bear skin thing hanging from the ceiling and I was like ‘Whoa.’ They have two little daughters who are like my little sisters now and it’s like my second mom and dad up there.”

Baseball greats like Randy Johnson and Barry Bonds also went though similar exchange-student-esque accommodations during stints in the ABL.

Players aren’t provided with a stipend for their effort, but clubs do provide for meals on road trips. Uniforms and equipment are provided but Laguna will have to be careful with his lumber when he steps up to the plate; he will only be issued three bats for the 45-game season.

The switch to wood bats was surprisingly the hardest thing for Laguna to get accustomed to when he first played with the club in 2004. With summer temperatures in Kenai comparable to those in San Diego the 21-year-old Yuma native hasn’t had the northern exposure he originally envisioned.

“I was expecting it to be freezing,” Laguna said. “But most of our games are in the early evening and even then you couldn’t ask for better weather in the summertime.”

The highlight of the ABL season occurs each year on the summer solstice when the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks host the famed Midnight Sun Game. On that night, the first pitch is at 10:40 p.m., yet the glow of field lights is strictly prohibited. The bulk of the game plays out in the warm sepia tones of twilight. Then, somewhere around the sixth inning, the sun sets only to reappear two hours later.

The Oilers weren’t scheduled to play in this year’s centennial anniversary of the classic but Laguna said he was touched by the mystique of the ritual when he played under Alaska’s hazy midnight sky in 2004.

“It was pretty amazing,” he said. “I think the game ended at maybe two in the morning and it was as bright as it is now. It got a little dark towards the end but the tradition is that the lights stay off no matter what the cost and we were still able to play.”

At ASU, teammates often razzed Laguna and teammate Frank Mesa for their Yuma roots. But in Kenai — a town with a population density of 3.1 people per square mile — locals are not the only things found prowling the streets.

“We get hard times being from Yuma but it’s home,” he said. “It would be the same way with Kenai it’s a small town with one strip of a main street and that’s pretty much it. It’s crazy seeing all the animals just walking around. I’ve actually seen bears running around on the street downtown.”

Newly appointed Oilers General Manager Shawn Maltby said clubs encourage players to partake in the excitement of the Alaskan wilderness.

“We set rules as a team but the host family ultimately sets the restriction rules as far as a curfew,” Maltby said. “We allow them free rein in what they want to do. At the same time, they also understand that we have a game pretty much every night. On June 30, we have a trip booked on Kenai Fjords that’s a local ship that goes out into Resurrection Bay and shows them the wildlife and the glaciers and the beluga whales, but that’s the type of stuff we try to do on off days to try and keep them from doing any crazy stuff.”

Crazy stuff aside, Maltby said the league is a premier place for college baseball’s finest athletes to progress towards a professional career. Even with the season under way he still receives calls from college coaches eager to get players into the summer league.

In Laguna’s case, the fan-favorite was preselected for his third stint with the club by Oilers manager Thad Johnson.

ASU coach Pat Murphy said it is hard to compare the ABL with other prominent summer leagues such as the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts but he thinks Laguna can improve multiple skill sets over the next two months.

“I’d like him to increase his ability to make contact more consistently,” Murphy said, adding that he would like Laguna to be able to drive the ball on a line more consistently. “You know work on his confidence work on all the opportunities he has in the outfield to take better routes and play balls better in the sun.”

Even though Laguna will be thousands of miles away from the Sun Devil training staff in Tempe, Murphy has no reservations about entrusting his players in the ABL for the summer.

“Playing the game is what its all about,” he said. “That’s a risk you take anytime. I think it’s important that you go out and play and if injuries happen they happen. The coaches that they have are very aware of how to handle these kids.”

Laguna said he plans on making the most of his experience in Alaska both on the field and at sea.

“We have guys on the team who are from Alaska and that’s what they do when they’re not playing ball,” Laguna said said. “They’re fishing and most of the time its for jobs but Kenai is one of the top spots in the world to fish in the summertime and you go out there and pull in salmon that are about half the size of me and it’s incredible.”

He won’t be just another college kid trying to make a buck in the fish business this summer but you might find him with a rod and reel on an off day.

“I never was a big fish guy until I went up there,” he added with a smile. “But they do salmon like we do carne asada.”

Mark Saxon can be reached at msaxon@yumasun.com or 539-6882.