Category: Sports History

When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city to see a baseball game. It was Portland’s Civic Stadium, the year was 1973, and the team was the Portland Mavericks. Over the next few years, we would see several more games and, while my memory can’t differentiate one year from another, there were several memorable moments.

The first, of course, was experiencing the crowds, the smells, and the feeling of space as I sat in a stadium for the first time. It is interesting that the smell of mustard, hotdogs, peanuts, and quite frankly people (this was the age of tobacco usage) overshadowed individual strikeouts, defensive plays, and scores in the mind of a child.

Nonetheless, there were a number of memories that stuck with me about the Mavericks and Portland Beavers of my youth:

• The announcer calling “Terry T-bone Jones!” and “Here Comes Reggie!” when two of our better batters would come up to the plate.
• Seeing the ball get stuck on the Jantzen Swimwear three-dimensional model in left field. That, by the way, is a ground rule double.
• In different games, watching Luis Tiant and Jim Bouton pitch, and Willie Stargell knocking a home run onto the deck of the Mac Club.
• I remember seeing actor Kurt Russell playing for the team.
• I remember seeing a foul ball sizzling toward us and break the ankle of the woman in the row in front of us. It was a reminder to keep my eyes open and pay attention at all sporting events.

The banner pictured above is a memento of that time. I believe I have others as well and will post them as I go through the junk pile we call the garage at our house. Just kidding, we keep an immaculate house. Just kidding, the truth is somewhere in between.