It's been a long time since I posted here. My apologies. Since March, I've been to a few baseball games -- University of Portland, Concordia University, West Coast League -- Portland, and even the Tacoma Raniers. But most of my baseball energy has been spent advocating for Milwaukie's bid to attract a Single-A baseball team to their city. You can follow along with that effort by going to Facebook and liking "Bring Baseball to Milwaukie."
At the same time Milwaukie was trying to attract a professional team from the Northwest League, the city of Hillsboro was trying to do the same thing. Eventually, as many of you know, the Yakima Bears chose to relocate to Hillsboro, and the city allocated funds to add a baseball stadium to its Gordon Faber Recreation Complex without requiring a vote of the citizens or adding new taxes. If the Bears had chosen Milwaukie, that city would have had to put a funding plan in place and ask voters to approve it, a chancy proposition at best.
I can certainly understand why the Bears chose Hillsboro over Milwaukie, because it was the safe and sure choice. Hillsboro's population is more than four times that of Milwaukie, they already had land on which to build a ballpark, and they had money to fund construction. Although the site for a Milwaukie ballpark had been identified, they would have had to acquire the land, reroute roads and utilities, and convince Milwaukie voters to pay for it all. Not nearly a sure thing anywhere, but especially not in Clackamas County, where voters refused to help pay for a new Sellwood Bridge and many want to keep an already-approved extension to MAX light rail out of their county.
So sure, it's logical that the Bears chose Hillsboro over Milwaukie. They'll get a new ballpark, they'll get fans to come, and they'll make money. But in my opinion, they'll miss out on the magic that could have been. The Bears new ballpark will be in Hillsboro, but there's not really any Hillsboro there, if you know what I mean. The site is next to the freeway, and there are lots of high-tech office buildings around, and gas stations, and a grocery store or two, and McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse is nearby. But the real city is miles away, and nobody is going to be able to walk to a game. I really doubt whether the addition of a baseball team will do much of anything for the morale or culture of the city.
In Milwaukie, however, the addition of a team could have worked wonders. There, citizens and leaders clearly wanted to do something to change the way people thought of the city. They wanted to revitalize, to get businesses to look at relocating there, to get people in the metro area to think of the place as more than a road where a bunch of strip joints are located. The new ballpark would have been about a half mile from downtown Milwaukie, right on the new MAX line. And the concourse would have been big and bold as seen from McGloughlin Blvd. when driving by. The stadium would have made big changes to the city and to everyone who lives there. Because of this, I'm very sorry that the bold thinking of the Milwaukie City Council wasn't rewarded.
Milwaukie leaders aren't giving up, however. Even though they were spurned by the Northwest League, they're pursuing the possibility of landing a team from the West Coast League, a summer wood-bat league for college players. They're looking at scaling back the size of a new stadium, to about 2,000 seats (costing about $12M instead of $25M). And they're investigating whether they could achieve a decent financial benefit from such an investment.
My own opinion is that although I'd love to see a West Coast League team in Milwaukie, I'm not sure it would benefit the city as much as a pro team would. The West Coast League is one of the best college summer leagues in the country (the most renowned would be the Cape Cod League), and its players are mostly from Pac-12 and other top Division 1 programs. But its teams play in small towns such as Cowlitz, Kelowna, and Kitsap. Locals may go gaga over their team, and I'm sure Milwaukie locals would go gaga over a team there too, but outside the area, who other than scouts, baseball fanatics, and relatives of the players care about this league? A team in Milwaukie might do great things for the city's morale, but will anyone outside the nearby area come to a game? Will anyone on the west side bother to cross the river when they can go to Hillsboro and watch a pro team play during the same months? Will this bring any new business to the city? Any new traffic? As much as I want a stadium and a team in Milwaukie, I don't believe the West Coast League will do much of anything to further Milwaukie's real goals of revitalizing the city.
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