Sports Column

No more home runs ... no more home

King Soccer takes over PGE Park

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Sep 6, 2010, Updated 22 hours ago (4 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / PORTLAND TRIBUNE

This is how PGE Park looked for the Portland Beavers' 2010 home opener April 8. The final pro baseball game was played Monday, with the Beavers leaving for good to make room for MLS.

The weather cooperated.

It was sunny and warm and darn near perfect as the Portland Beavers made their final appearance at PGE Park Monday afternoon.

The crowd was a sellout, and a packed PGE Park was a sight to behold. The fans were alive and rowdy and ready to party, and the Beavers rewarded them with a 6-5 victory over the Las Vegas 51s.

Not a bad scene for a wake.

That’s what it was for the Beavers, who are likely headed for Escondido, Calif., next season.

And Portland — the largest city in the country without major league baseball — now doesn’t have pro baseball at all.

“It’s a shame,” said former Beavers manager Pete Ward, the 1963 American League rookie of the year who was born and raised in Portland. “It’s bad for the kids who grow up here and love baseball, and want to watch it at the professional level. It’s a big loss for Portland.”

I know what Ward meant. I brought my youngest son, Drew, to the game. He’d gone to many Beavers games with me over the years. He wanted to be there Monday. So did I.

The Beavers did a nice job bringing in many great names of the past for a pregame ceremony, including Ward, ex-big leaguer Tommy Sandt and the great Frank “The Flake” Peters.

“I’m the only guy who played both for the Beavers and the (independent Portland) Mavericks,” said Peters, decked in a retro Beavers jersey. “Mention that when you castigate those people for letting baseball slip away.”

I’ve grown tired of offering castigations of Mayor Sam Adams and the bobos of city council who don’t see the value in keeping pro baseball in our city. I’ll bet Randy Leonard — the only councilman who was a proponent of a baseball-only stadium — was at PGE Park Sunday. I’m pretty sure Adams wasn’t.

“I blame the mayor and the city council for not getting on the stick,” said Vince Pesky, 89, the younger brother of baseball legend Johnny Pesky. “Paul Allen runs everything. Had they built a ballpark at (the Rose Quarter), it could have been an entryway to an major-league team.”

Sandt, who coaches youth and is a volunteer assistant at Tigard High, spoke for many of the baseball faithful when he offered, “It’s horrible that a city this size doesn’t have a baseball team. I guess soccer is king in this town.”

Among the dignitaries was ex-Beaver great George Freese, 83, in a wheelchair on the field before the game.

“I can’t believe it,” Freese said. “It’s unreal. So many years of the Beavers, and they just throw it away.”

Peters brought his daughter, Daryn, who was born on a Beaver game day 38 years ago. Her birth was announced over the public address that day.

“The doctor delivered the baby; I went ahead and played,” Peters said. “I went 3 for 4. I had a great game.”

Al Egg — for 31 years chaplain of the Beavers — gave his final chapel to the Beaver players before Sunday’s game.

“I’ve been emotional all week,” Egg said. “I’ll go down afterward, say goodbye to the players and cry.”

Monday’s atmosphere at PGE Park was anything but funereal. The fans seemed to want to make a statement, that they do care. The Beavers were greeted by a standing ovation as they took the field. They rose again when Wily Mo Pena launched a moon shot onto 18th street for an early lead. And again when Nick Green, a former Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves player, delivered a game-winning two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth.

And remarkably, most of the fans stayed to the end. It was as if they wanted to soak up every bit of the final moments of the Beavers. They stood and watched Bevo skipper Terry Kennedy dig up home plate afterward.

Owner Merritt Paulson must have been thinking, where was this kind of support when I needed it?

“The city had a real opportunity to take baseball to another level,” Peters offered. “They’ve left here before; they’ll be back.”

Maybe. It will take public support for a new stadium, though. Baseball will never be back at PGE Park, which is now a soccer facility.

On the scoreboard was a simple message: “Thank you, Beaver fans, for a great 2010 season.”

There was no, “See you next year.”

The kids took to the field and ran the bases after the game, and there were a few adults who did the same.

Then the Bevos went dark. R.I.P.

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