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Businesses near PGE Park have only a field of dreams
As the Washington Nationals open in D.C. today, Portland baseball fans can just sigh at what coulda been
By ROB FERNAS
The Oregonian
Thursday, April 14, 2005

A handful of lunchtime customers drift in and out of The Bullpen, an old-school tavern nestled on a lonely stretch of Southwest Taylor Street, just steps from Portland's PGE Park.

Local artist Pat Cress, 57, has been coming here since 1968, drawn by the comfortable surroundings, longtime friendships and, as he points out, the same bargain-priced beverage.

"A dollar twenty-five," he says, holding up his can of Hamm's beer. "Can't beat that."

Other traditions endure as well. The front booth at The Bullpen has a colorful history. It was once the hangout of Bob Packwood, the former U.S. senator, who ordered his cheeseburgers "very rare," says longtime bartender Patti Jensen. The booth has since been taken over by some Portland State professors, who meet every Friday.

Kathy McKay, owner of The Bullpen, appreciates her loyal patrons. Trouble is, there aren't enough of them to regularly turn a profit.

Like many businesses in the neighborhood, The Bullpen is dependent on events at PGE Park for drawing customers to the area and boosting sales. And like many business owners, McKay thinks about what it would have meant if the Portland incarnation of the Montreal Expos (which has its home opener today in Washington, D.C.) had started its major league season last week here instead.

"Night and day," she says of having big-league ball. "We might even get a paycheck."

Why? McKay reckons that for each of the 81 home games, business would be brisk enough to go from the normal one evening bartender to four. Instead, it's time to cry in Cress' buck-and-a-quarter can of Hamm's. Civic leaders failed in their bid to bring a major league team to Portland this year, losing out to Washington, D.C., which now has its Washington Nationals.

That's the business side of the major league debate that took place for the past 18 months. As the season is under way, what's clear is this much: Portland has no major league team; instead it has many major league fans who have moved here from major league cities.

Travis Hoxmeier, 29, sitting at The Bullpen last week, only occasionally glanced up from his newspaper to watch the Mariners' opener against the Minnesota Twins on the TV above the bar.

Hoxmeier's ambivalence toward the Mariners is understandable. The Portland native has been a New York Yankees fan for more than 20 years and was proudly wearing his Yankees cap after watching them beat the Boston Red Sox at another local bar the night before.

With no major league history, Portlanders' baseball allegiances run the gamut.

Cress, the artist, says he's a longtime Detroit Tigers fan, partly because that's the team that fellow Lincoln High graduate and former neighbor Mickey Lolich pitched for. Lolich was the hero of the Tigers' 1968 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, winning three games.

"It would be great" if Portland had a team, Cress says. Instead of the Mariners, he was watching the Chicago Cubs play the Arizona Diamondbacks on another TV at the Bullpen.

Chris Spinelli, 27, a bartender at the Bitter End Pub that borders PGE Park, isn't watching the Mariners game either, unaware they are even playing. He grew up in Reno, Nev., and is a fan of the San Francisco Giants.

"If they brought in a major league team (to Portland), I would be more interested," he said, "but I would rather see an Arena League Football team here than baseball."

A smattering of patrons at the Kingston Bar and Grill, across from the main entrance to PGE Park, paid little attention to the baseball games playing on several TVs. Roland Ilg, 68, says he casually follows the Mariners and takes the train at least once a year to watch them play at Seattle's Safeco Field.

A former gatekeeper at PGE Park, Ilg said he supports minor league baseball in Portland but is skeptical a major league team would be successful. "Portland is not a major league city," he says. "There's too many things to do here."

Still, supporters of major league ball in Portland continue to say a team translates into jobs, revenue and unprecedented exposure for Portland. With it, baseball caps and attire branded with the team's logo would be part of the Oregon landscape.

Instead of Oregonians traveling to Seattle to watch the Mariners, Portland would be the destination for baseball fans from Southwest Washington.

Hotels, restaurants and bars all would be big winners.

Getting one of the 130 rooms at the Mallory Hotel, three blocks from PGE Park, could have become next to impossible during baseball home stands. "It wouldn't be a bad thing," desk clerk Robert Edwards says. "It would be fun."

Getting tickets for games could have been even tougher.

More than 27,000 fans of the Washington Nationals (the team Portland didn't get) registered for an online lottery that gave 400 of them the option to buy as many as four tickets to the Nationals' home-opening game April 14. Ticket brokers are having a field day, with the asking price topping $1,200, nearly 30 times the face value, for lower-deck seats at 45,550-seat RFK Stadium.

Gary Jondahl says those kinds of crowds are phenomenal for business.

"It would make a huge financial impact on the whole city," says Jondahl, owner of the Kingston.

Or, as Don Blair put it, "We'd have to buy a wheelbarrow for all the money."

Blair is the Kingston's office manager. He estimates that on game days the restaurant would have taken in $1,000 more than usual. With 81 home games, that would add up to a windfall of $81,000 a season. "And that would be a conservative guess," he says.

Jondahl says the only scenario he could compare it to is when the University of Montana plays Portland State in football at PGE Park. "Montana's fans travel really well," he says. But that's only one game every two years.

Jondahl says the crowds on game days would have created a festive atmosphere similar to that found in other cities with urban ballparks, such as Wrigley Field in Chicago, where neighborhood bars overflow with fans.

"You could just imagine," Jondahl says. "Our place would be packed before (games) and packed afterward. It would be a cash cow."

Having major league games at PGE Park also would have been a perk for members of the adjacent Multnomah Athletic Club. The club has 300 wooden-bench seats overlooking PGE Park. "I'm sure our members would love it," security manager Dennis Wright says.

Across the street at The Bullpen, McKay knows what having major league baseball in the neighborhood would mean.

"It would be pretty over the top as far as crowds and stuff," she says.

The tavern also would solve an identity crisis. Despite the baseball connotation of its name, The Bullpen is primarily a soccer hangout since it became the home last year of the Timbers Army, the team's fan club.

However, no one at The Bullpen would complain if an army of baseball fans joined the ranks.

Patti Jensen, the bartender and McKay's sister, says getting a major league team is "an absolute dream."

And that's all it is, for now.

From today's "Living" section of the Oregonian...

Read the entire list here on the Oregonian website

Thursday, April 14, 2005

CRY IN YOUR BEER, FANS The Montreal Expos never moved to Portland, so we're missing out on the buzz that would have been the PDXPOS. Instead, it's the Washington Nationals fans who get to pontificate endlessly about:

Who throws out the first pitch on opening day? In D.C., of course, Dubya tops the list, but shouldn't it be slugger Frank "Hondo/The Capital Punisher" Howard, the iconic figure from the defunct Senators squad?

The new "Pledge of Allegiance" in our nation's capital? Orioles or Nationals.

The $435 million ballpark to replace RFK Stadium in 2008 is at $581 million and counting.

Adjustable cap, $16.99; batting practice jersey, $79.99; women's polo, $49.99; youth jersey, $64.99; four tickets for the outfield upper deck, $28.

And, of course, there is one very bittersweet note for newbie Portlanders from California. The "Not Your Nationals" coulda-been home schedule includes the Dodgers and Padres in early August and the Giants in late September.

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Business of Sports Network | Biz of Baseball | Biz of Basketball | Baseball Prospectus

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Hey, Bud: We didn't need those lousy Expos, after all

From the Oregonian
Thursday, April 14, 2005

Calling it a "fraud that one team has initiated and that Major League Baseball has joined as a co-conspirator," Murray Chass notes in The New York Times that Arte Moreno has changed his team's name from Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

"And," he adds, "Commissioner Bud Selig has allowed him. It makes one wonder why, when Selig owned a team, he didn't call it the Chicago Brewers of Milwaukee."

The cities, both on Lake Michigan, are just 90 miles apart, after all.

Carrying this geographical rezoning a mere 75 miles or so farther, Jay Wang of The Oregonian staff has come up with a brilliant way for Portland to have a major league team of its own without any fuss or muss of building a stadium.

How about: The Seattle Mariners of Portland . . . or in alternate years, the Portland Mariners of Seattle?