Hello friends!
What a difference a year makes. My first visit to Portland in 2009, as chronicled in the Baseball Extravaganza 2009 blog, was a day filled with warm temperatures and brilliant sunshine. My first visit to PGE Park in 2010 had to have been the complete opposite. In a game that featured nearly three-and-a-half hours of rain delay, I saw the Beavers drop a heart breaker to the Oklahoma City Redhawks 3-2. The wind whipped up, the rain pelted, and the temperatures plummeted to a shivering experience at the old park today. Yet, baseball is baseball, and I did have a really good time.
I was encouraged when I first got to the park with the light sprinkles that were falling. I kept in mind that Oregon is famous for passing weather where one minute it can be cold and nasty, and then the next it is sunny and warm. I held out hope that this would be the case, but the conditions continued to deteriorate. The game was delayed at the outset by nearly thirty minutes to wait for the showers to pass. Then, in the middle of the fifth, another hour-long delay forced the grounds crew at PGE Park to scurry about setting up tarpaulins and sandbags. The home team batted in the bottom of the fifth before another sheet of heavy rain deluged the field sending the players back to the clubhouse.
It was at this point that I figured the game would be called. The grounds crew had staked the tarps fully, the media people were going into the clubhouse for their postgame interviews, and all the fans were leaving. Baseball rules state that a game must go five innings for it to be official, and that happened. Because of the delays, I was running up against a departing train schedule, so I packed my stuff up and left.
When I got home, I found out that the game was not called and did continue after a marathon two-and-a-half hour delay.
Yesterday, I wrote about how I wanted to interview people at the park regarding their feelings on the situation the Beavers franchise is in regarding a possible departure from Portland. I had conversations with about five or six people, and I truly feel I got a real sense of what is going on with this whole thing.
I have come to the conclusion that baseball fans in Portland are extremely apathetic and simply don't care. This is a shame, considering the gem of a baseball world they have, but it is obvious. The Beavers are not drawing anybody to the games, the media is not giving them the exposure they deserve, and when faced with a possible exit from the scene, nobody in the community has stepped up to vouch for their importance. The Beavers management went to the City Councils asking for assistance in building a new park, but were shot down. They have attempted to create a family atmosphere that breeds entertainment and devotion, but the fans have ignored it. If Portlanders don't care about their baseball team, then, to be abrupt, they don't deserve one.
I truly feel that my experience gives me an adequate handle on this situation. My travels across the country to ballparks and cities, and the constant reflection and interaction with the Civic Stadium debacle last year have to lend me at least some credibility. I have to say that Portland should be ashamed of itself. They are letting slip through their fingers a great thing and when it is gone, it will be gone for good. This is the second time in my lifetime that a Triple-A franchise has left Portland because of a lack of support. No owner will ever put another team in Portland based on that track record. The largest city in Oregon, in my opinion, will never see professional baseball again.
All throughout school, I learned that Oregon was famous for a culture of anti-establishment and protection of treasures. It seems that in the past few years, this credo has been lost and replaced by an apathetic indifference to authority and a disrespect for what is supposed to be right and good. It seems that in the past few years, the citizens of this state have been content to let corporate lions invade the space we treasured and invoke their doctrine on what we held to be special in our hearts. The University of Oregon taking over the baseball scene in Eugene with money and intimidation, the so-called "liberal bastion" and "forward-thinking" city of Portland content with letting a treasure leave for greener pastures. What has happened to this place I call home? Am I the only one who thinks this way?
I have accepted a job in the AmeriCorps VISTA program in Akron, OH beginning August 1. I will be moving out there at that time, and I plan on seeing many games and many teams in that region. There is a Double-A team in Akron, Single-A Short-Season in Niles, Triple-A in Columbus, and, of course, the Indians in Cleveland. There is a lot of good baseball to be seen out there, and I am excited to broaden my horizons even more by seeing those communities and experiencing the ballparks and teams that reside there.
Before I leave, I have my roadtrip to SoCal planned, but I would also like to maybe do some sort of "local" roadtrip. Perhaps a repeat of the Northwest or Bay Area trips from last year. I don't really know what I want to do. I will, however, certainly be making at least one, maybe two, more trips back up to Portland.
Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)
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