A Return to the Rose City

Good day followers!

After over a month hiatus without any baseball, I will be making my way up to Portland tomorrow for my first visit to PGE Park in 2010. The Beavers will be hosting the Oklahoma City Redhawks in an afternoon tilt.

Since my last visit to PGE Park in September 2009, a lot has changed with regards to the park and the Beavers organization. The ownership of the Beavers has attracted a Major League Soccer team to play at a newly-redesigned PGE Park starting in 2011. The Beavers have been trying in vain to persuade city councils in Portland, and neighboring Beaverton and Greshman to put forth the capital to build a baseball-only facility in their respective communities. All of the proposals have fell through, and it seems destined that the Beavers will be leaving PGE Park for another location.

This trip up to Portland will serve not only as a baseball roadtrip, but as a sociological study. How are the baseball fans in Portland dealing with the potential loss of the Beavers? Are there plans in the making to organize perhaps a grassroots effort to save the stadium? Why did the plans for the stadium in those three locations fall through? I plan on talking to fans and front office personnel about these issues. I want to try and get a personal viewpoint on this issue that isn't from the newspapers or online forums.

Last year, the loss of Civic Stadium was a traumatic experience for this community and myself. After that whole debacle, I truly feel that baseball will never be the same here in the Eugene-Springfield area. It was a piece of baseball history that was thrown away by the corporate lions and deep pockets of the University of Oregon. Is this whole situation with the Beavers kind of "same-story-different-chapter"? Can we expect a huge, but tardy, outpouring of support from the community? These are questions I hope to be able to answer in tomorrow's blog posting.

I will tweet from the game and will certainly update the blog when I get back.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)