Portland opens up the 2004 Pacific Coast League Baseball season Thursday.
The Beavers are on the road for the start of the season, heading out to Las Vegas to take on the 51s, the Triple-A club of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
On April 16, the Beavers return to Portland to take on the 51s again. The only difference? It’s Portland’s home opener.
And yet, how close that could have been to happening in Eugene.
The Beavers don’t have an owner. They’ve been taken over by the PCL. That only happened last week.
Before that, the city of Portland was thinking of locking the team out of PGE Park because of unpaid debt accumulated by one of the team’s previous management groups.
So where would the Beavers go?
One suggestion was Peoria, Ariz., the spring training home of the club’s parent organization, San Diego.
The other destination?
Civic Stadium in Eugene.
Just think of the possibilities. Imagine what it would have been like to see potential major leaguers in our little city. I’d be interested.
Too bad it won’t happen.
Guess we’ll have to go all the way to Portland to see the likes of pitcher Dennis Tankersley and outfielder Xavier Nady, two of the Padres’ better prospects at that level.
The opportunity to see the club in Eugene was almost realized, even though it wasn’t set in stone. There would have been obstacles to getting the Beavers into Eugene, mainly dealing with stadium issues, because quite honestly, Civic Stadium is a far cry from PGE Park.
There’s a foundation of baseball fans in Eugene, no doubt. Since the sport left the University in 1981, there has been a void that hasn’t quite been filled.
The school’s Club program thrives, somewhat, even though it appears to suffer from the same setbacks that dominate the level. There’s little money with too much travel.
But it gets its share of fans. That was apparent this weekend when the team hosted Western Washington in a three-game series.
Even as the doubleheader Saturday wound down, the fans were there. They were seen basking in the sun, hoping the Ducks could pull out a late-inning win in the second game of the afternoon.
Oregon couldn’t do that. But it’s presence was enough.
The fact the Beavers even considered Eugene a possible destination is enough to show baseball in this city could thrive. In doing a story on the state of baseball in Eugene, I learned that the sport would be on the table if the University could meet all the rules stipulated by Title IX.
The thing is, that’s not going to happen for a while. There are a number of factors that need to be cleared, the most pressing being the equality of women’s sports to men’s sports.
Women need to be given more opportunities at the college level. I, for one, am for that. Women’s athletics have proven to be competitive, to an extent, and interesting to watch. Hopefully lacrosse will prove to be the same way when it starts next year.
For now, I’ll stick to watching Club baseball and ESPN and ESPN2 to catch Major League Baseball action. If I want to see high-level baseball in person, I’ll head to Portland, where the Beavers are an underrated attraction in a city that is dominated by Blazers-mania.
Too bad the Beavers can’t play in Eugene. I’d be out there every night.