Portland, Oregon is not synonymous with baseball. Professional baseball has been around in some form or another since 1890 – amateur teams date back to at least 1866. The longest running professional team in the Rose City was the Portland Beavers, a founding member of the Pacific Coast League in 1903 – the name “Beavers” did not come until 1906. The team would finish first only on rare occasions for much of its long history. The Beavers even occasionally changed their name to attempt to revise their standing. They also changed affiliations with major league teams on a regular basis. As a child, I remember them from their affiliation with the Cleveland Indians and Sam McDowell and Luis Tiant on the mound for the Beavs.

BASEBALL IN THE ROSE CITY

The original Beavers left for Sacramento in 1918, but were back the following year. The second iteration of the Beavers left in 1971 for New Mexico. Other Beavers teams came and went with the last PCL leaving in 2010 when the stadium was reconfigured for soccer – the Portland Timbers and the Major League Soccer is another story. There are major attempts to bring a MLB team to Portland with possible stadium projected in different parts of the city – an attempt to bring the Montreal Expos was thwarted by what is today the Washington Nationals.