Dreams of field
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| Coming to Beaverton? Dubious. |
I see that the people fantasizing about bringing major league baseball to Portland have now shifted their sights to a golf course in the suburbs on the west side. If I'm reading the media correctly, the golf course that would be replaced by the massive baseball stadium is owned by the City of Portland, but it's in Beaverton. I'm not sure how that works, but on the west side, the city and county boundaries get all crazy. For example, Nike isn't in any city; it's a law unto itself in so many ways.
Anyway, it sounds like the baseball crusaders have given up on the Lloyd Center site in inner northeast Portland, and well they should. If they had tried to build it there, it would have had to include lots of junk apartment buildings in order to buy off the Portland City Hall urban planning mafia, and what would be left for actual baseball would be incredibly cramped. I posted the picture here last summer. It's kind of a joke.
But I'd be just as shocked if the owners who control Major League Baseball want to put a team out in Beaverton. Downtown is usually their thing. Beyond the outfield fences, they want to see skyscrapers, not a strip mall with a Shari's.
And I'm sure the people who live out near the golf course are beside themselves thinking about it.
Between that and the fact that there isn't enough money in Portland to support 81 baseball games, 41 Blazer games, and who knows how many soccer games – well, big-time baseball ain't likely to happen here. Pro football would actually make more sense.
But hey, pitchers and catchers start reporting for duty next week. If you want to look out at the 45-degree rain and dream about baseball, nobody can stop you.
I love baseball and spent darn near every minute playing from age 8 to about age 30 or so. Portland is not a baseball town. Sure, maybe back in 1960-something when they were trying to put the Delta Dome in. But baseball is much too traditional for this town. We are into naked bike rides and impromptu protests.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if we have left it in the dust, or is it the other way around?
My pioneering family settled in Metzger and had considerable pasture land for their dairy farm including what we always referred to as "the five acres" which were located right off Olsen Road where "Red Tail" (Progress Downs) is located today. Several of the post-war houses that my uncles built in their spare time (they were firefighters) still stand adjacent to the old property. Maybe I'd feel differently about the MLB if we still owned any of that land, but.....
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up I read the baseball box scores daily, memorized player stats, collected bubblegum cards, and tuned in KMOX to listen to the Cards at night. That all became less urgent and eventually evaporated as I grew up and I haven't cared a whit about "major league" baseball for decades. To me it is stunning that anyone is on a rickety, money-leaking, bandwagon to bring MLB to this region; I'd rather watch my grandchildren play T-Ball.
It’s kind of hard to have as your hero people that have $400 -$800 million contracts. The whole thing gets kind of ludicrous after awhile.
DeleteGone are the days of Vida Blue, Joe Morgan, and Mark Fidrych. It is hard to relate to ballplayers who make more by mid-season than most people make in their lifetimes.
If this was really about bringing big league baseball to Portland, the promoters would find a couple of local billionaires to comment to the project. The trouble is that there aren’t many local billionaires, and they aren’t interested in baseball
ReplyDeleteThe template now is what they did in Atlanta. Move it to the burbs just outside the major city, where the money is. They're running pretty much that play here. I visited the Atlanta thing a few years ago. It's a mix of professional offices (think the old third level of Lloyd Center in the seventies), big, dumb sports bars, and parking. That's what they'll shoot for here. They'll build it sans ballpark. Although it would be interesting to see what they might do with some sort of mixed basketball/baseball/softball thing for youth club sports. That would be HUGE.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "Portland isn't a baseball town" thing, that's just not true. When the Beavers left for Salt Lake City in the nineties, Jack Cain brought in the Rockies and they were a HUGE hit until Scott Thomason and Marshall Glickman grifted their way into a AAA franchise, banishing Cain to Pasco. After they were run out of town, Cain was brought back to save the Beavers, which he did. It works here with good ownership. Unfortunately Cocaine Johnny Hedgefund won't be a good owner here. And Knight is simply too old (even for an NBA franchise).
So the real estate guys are about to talk the city into giving them a HUGE plot of land for a song. They'll do what they always do. And so it goes.
When they had the Futures game at Civic Stadium, a pitcher (whose name I have since forgotten) threw an immaculate inning. I jumped out of my seat, cheering, and everybody just looked at me like I was nuts. That's when I accepted that Portland just isn't a baseball town.
DeleteThere's HUGE, and then there's major league HUGE. The average MLB team draws 29,000, 81 times a year. I just don't see it in Portland.
ReplyDeleteMy point is a facility with about two dozen indoor basketball and volleyball courts and another dozen or so outdoor fields split between baseball, softball, and lacrosse would be a huge hit. The youth club sport-industrial complex would keep such a thing (and associated restaurants and shops) hopping twelve months a year.
DeleteI agree on pro Football. Every time I've talked to people about it there's this deep concern that it would take away money and fans from UO and OSU. I'm not sure that it tracks, but somehow pro football would damage college sports teams?
ReplyDeleteNow that there is no PAC12, college football has jumped the shark.
DeleteMy dad went to Oregon on a baseball scholarship and might have been a big leaguer if WW2 didn't get in the way. Baseball is still popular but not like it used to be. The game is way too slow, way too many games, and way too many teams. They should have listened to former A's owner Charlie Finley and changed the rules to speed up the game. 3 balls is a walk, and so many fouls is an out. But baseball pretends that "purity" of the game is more important.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue is that there are fewer homegrown players in the league. A lot of the players don’t even speak English, and the lack of AA ball players is a plague on the game.
DeleteWhen I played Senior League (Babe Ruth) at Irving Park in the mid-70’s, I was the only white guy in the league. Some tremendous talent came out of that park, including Darryl Motley who went on to play MLB.
That might sound somewhat xenophobic, but oh well. Arrest me.
MLB attendance averages over 29,000 over 162 games. It's setting records for streaming views. But, yeah, it's as dead as it has been for the last 50 years that people have been proclaiming its imminent demise.
DeletePDX Diamond Project challenge: drive to Washington Square at 4:30pm just once.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point
DeleteAnd paving over 165 acres of open space in the Fanno Creek drainage couldn’t possibly cause any problems.
DeletePortland absolutely needs a domed professional sports stadium. Raise the taxes and float a bond and invest in your community. But, reserve the new stadium for professional women’s sports only. Generations yet to be born will celebrate your foresight.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, absolutely do not build a new I-5 bridge but do put a toll on the current structure.
No one could have predicted the population growth of the Portland/Vancouver area. No one. Therefore, it is wrong to punish the existing taxpayers with the cost of a new structure.
Far sighted sisters like Kate and Kotek and sundry sisters will care for Oregon’s future just as they so carefully steward our present.
Increase and strengthen Oregon’s extant DEI bureaucracies in every level of government and put and absolute halt on all meritocratic initiatives. The capitalist hate schemes of proper qualifications or entrepreneurship must be buried.
We must make room and opportunities for the fervent advocates or order and democracy they visit to stay from over the border. Oregon must lead the nation in advocating citizenship for every one of our non-traditional migrants.
Generations? Mortgages are barely paid off before they're determined to be obsolete and new ones constructed. Stadiums are a thirty-year deal, max.
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