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Baseball might be too fun for Portland

By Susan Nielsen
Associate editor of the Oregonian
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Baseball: Portland may like idea if it's local, homegrown and good for us

People in the Northwest love baseball, but local liberals aren't convinced Portland is a major league baseball town.

No wonder. Big-league baseball is corporate and fun. Portland liberals don't do corporate, and they sure as heck don't do fun.

This means the local baseball backers hoping to lure the Montreal Expos to town need to tailor their arguments to a Portland audience.

They shouldn't mention big business. They should under no circumstances mention fun and excitement. They should rebuild their local campaign around this Portland-specific message:

Baseball is grass roots and good for you.

Portland joins a half-dozen places competing to be the new home of the Montreal Expos, a baseball team left to die in a hockey nation. Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says he expects to make a decision by mid-July.

Local baseball proponents and Mayor Vera Katz put together a solid bid. Hundreds of local businesses, from Oregon Chai to Nike, support this bid. They know baseball teams in other cities boost tourism, generate jobs and broaden the tax base.

"It's not (just) because we're fans of baseball. It's because we're fans of a stronger economy," said Wes Lawrence, Oregon president of Key Bank and member of the Portland Business Alliance, at a news conference last week.

This region has plenty of ordinary sports fans, too. Television viewership data show people in the Portland area watch more Mariners games than people in many big cities watch their own home teams.

But there's a spoiler. People in Portland's most liberal circles seem to greet the thought of baseball with prim silence or Puritan distaste. The typical rationale is, "We can't condone baseball until every child is fed, every house is affordable and every trolley line is extended."

In short, it'll be a hot and dry day in January before they'll root for a Portland team.

Dismayingly, Portland's mayoral candidates share this anti-baseball attitude. Jim Francesconi and Tom Potter say they're not interested in landing a team.

"I have to admit, I'm not a baseball fan," Potter said in an interview last week. He said he needed more information about baseball's benefits but added the city might be better off spending tax money on early childhood education than on baseball, if the goal were economic development.

Potter guessed he last attended a baseball game in the 1980s.

Francesconi has repeatedly said baseball is not a priority. He says Portland should focus on jobs and schools instead.

These stances are baffling. Big-league baseball stimulates the economy in ways that little farm teams never do. A major league team would generate construction jobs, restaurant jobs, pub jobs, hotel jobs and tourism-related jobs. The tax revenues from additional business would help pay for schools.

Alas, baseball is what big American cities do. Portland prides itself on being European and different. Baseball teams are part of a corporate franchise. Corporations from McDonald's to Home Depot are sniffed at here.

And baseball is undeniably a sport, with the damning taint of fun.

"It risks being seen as a little frivolous," said Nick Fish, a City Council candidate who calls himself "agnostic" about baseball.

In the face of this crushing tepidity, baseball backers should do two things. First, they should take heart in the support for baseball among Oregon's political leaders. The Oregon Legislature passed a bipartisan bill that would use the income tax from players' salaries to help pay for a stadium. Gov. Ted Kulongoski wrote a letter to Selig last year saying, "Baseball in Portland is an economic success story waiting to happen."

Next, they've got to sell this idea to Portland liberals. That means one thing: Grow more grass roots.

They can't just rely on business sponsors to make this fly. They need to publicize thousands of ordinary names gathered on written and online petitions. They need neighborhood leaders on advisory groups. They need to treat this like a huge school levy campaign, and enlist every family in Oregon and Southwest Washington that loves baseball.

And baseball backers need to think like liberal Portland about where to put the Expos or the next floating team. A stadium can't slam down into a neighborhood like a corporate asteroid. A team has to be (sing it with me here) interwoven in the web of this community, one valued neighbor among many.

That's not how you sell Portland baseball in New York. But I suspect that's how you sell baseball to Portland.

Associate editor Susan Nielsen: 503-221-8153; susannielsen@news.oregonian.com