More than 5,000 miles away from home in what most people think of as a frozen and barren landscape, Isaiah Parido and Jason Long played baseball.
The pair of former Lampeter-Strasburg and current Messiah University teammates played for the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks in the Alaskan Baseball League, or ABL, this summer.
The ABL is a five-team, wood-bat summer league that is designed to help college players who are interested in playing at the professional level.
Long and Parido heard about the league through recent Messiah graduate Dustin Isanogle, who played for the Chinooks last summer.
“He just mentioned how much of a transformative experience it was,” Long said. “(He said) the baseball was good, but also the relationships.”
Summer collegiate leagues are commonplace all over the country. Long played in the Valley Baseball League in Virginia last summer. Parido was looking at the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts and the Coastal Plain League in the southeast for this summer.
Both Long’s and Parido’s parents weren’t initially sold on the idea of them going across the continent for six weeks, especially with much closer options available.
The major selling point for both players was the opportunity to grow in their faith. The Chinooks are the ABL’s only faith-based team.
“I played down in the Valley, and it was really good baseball, but I didn’t grow that many connections with the guys,” Long said. “I didn’t grow as a person or spiritually from it.”
Parido is a very social person, while Long is more reserved and mild-mannered. Both, however, were thrown completely out of their comfort zone in the 49th state.
The pair, along with fellow Messiah teammate Christian Foltz, slept on basement bunk beds while living with a host family.
“There was definitely a little bit of an adjustment period for me, probably more than the other two,” Long said. “I’m someone who really likes to be comfortable and stick to a routine, so going and living somewhere else was definitely out of my comfort zone.”
“I think when I signed up for it, I didn’t really know what I was signing up for,” added Parido. “But I kind of went in with a free head, willing to meet new people.”
They played six games a week with two hours of discipleship every day. In between, they found some time for sightseeing on the long days of the Alaskan summer.
Hiking, boat excursions, fishing — the pair got the full Alaskan experience.
“It’s just so amazing and beautiful,” Long said. “When I tell people that, it kind of gets them excited, like maybe they want to go up too.”
Lampeter-Strasburg graduates and current Messiah University teammates Isaiah Parido, middle left, and Jason Long, far left, pose on top of Mt. Baldy in Chugach State Park near Anchorage, Alaska. The pair, along with Messiah teammate Christian Foltz, far right, played for the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks in the Alaskan Baseball League over the summer. Former teammate Dustin Isanogle, center, played in the league last summer. His wife, Makenna, is on the middle right.
Courtesy of Jason Long
The midnight sun often meant that the pair would go to sleep while the sun was still up. The sleep was needed, especially in the early part of their trip — both L-S alums were instrumental in Messiah’s deep run in the NCAA Division III College World Series. The Falcons lost in the championship series.
Their initial flight had to be postponed because the Eagles were still playing. Once the season ended, they had mere days to prepare for the eight-hour trip.
“We kind of got to that moment after the World Series where it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I go out to Alaska in 48 hours,’ ” Parido said. “But it was good to get back into it right away. I played 85 games from February to the end of July, but I loved every second of it.”
The pair returned home on the morning of July 21. That same night, they played in a Quad County Baseball League game for the L-S Sweat Hogs, an adult-league team mostly composed of and coached by fellow former Pioneers.
Long hit a go-ahead grand slam in the final inning.
Building for the future
Parido, a rising senior, was named an ABL all-league first-team outfielder after the season. An all-region player for Messiah, he’s started to get looks from MLB teams.
Messiah coach Phill Shallenberger has fielded calls from the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox about Parido. A scout from the San Diego Padres was in attendance to watch him in Messiah’s World Series game against Johns Hopkins.
Long, a pre-physical therapy major and a rising junior, is looking at his future more conservatively.
“Being a Division III guy and where I’m at with my academics, I’m pretty set on what I want to do with my life,” he said. “If baseball continues and that door opens, I’ll get that when I come to it.”
Long and Parido played together on a team called the Tigers in 10U. Baseball has taken them a long way from home.
“Baseball has just absolutely been amazing in both of our lives,” Parido said. “It’s taken us further than we could had ever imagined.”
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