The Other Portland

I'm freshly returned from the other Portland, the one in Oregon, where my buddy Ralph and I took in a Thursday night tilt between the Beavers (AAA affiliate of the San Diego Padres), and the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Marlins affiliate in the Pacific Coast League.

The venue was Portland's PGE Park. This is an old ballpark (formerly Multnomah Stadium) that is tucked in between on 18th Street at the end of Taylor and Salmon Streets. The approach to the field is terrific. There is a fence beyond the family deck in left field that passers-by can look through to see the park and the field below. The street is close enough that it can be reached by a ball on the fly, as was the case on the night that I was there.

The park also has a manually-operated scoreboard. You can see the "action" from the street.

I'm not sure of the capacity, but it is certainly in excess of 15,000 people, however the park maintains an intimate feel similar to Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine. For one thing, the park is crammed between the city's streets and has a health club looming just beyond the right field fence. While the actual outfield fence is short, the sunken nature of the park leads to an ivy-covered concrete wall in left that attempts to capture the ambience of Fenway or Wrigley, but fails in both endeavors. There is a family section to the left of the foul pole, with table seating and bouncy rides.
Most of the seating is under an overhanging roof. The roof and all the surrounding concrete make it a pretty loud place.

The park was renovated a few years ago, resulting in the addition of the private boxes behind home plate that you can see in the "from the street" photo above. The concourses were expanded, and the place is quite comfortable with a lot of concessions. Some members of our conference attended the Wednesday night game and reported that it was $1 hot dog night. We didn't get that benefit, but were pleased to learn that Thursday night is $2 Miller Lite night. I'm not the biggest fan of Miller Lite, and thus was quite pleased to find out that the microbrews were also $3 off - for the same price as a bag of peanuts, one could purchase 12 lucious ounces of Widmer Brothers Drop Top Amber Ale. Which Ralph and I did, a couple of times over.

There was a ballgame that night, and a pretty good one, too. I'm a bit of a prospect follower, and there wasn't much to follow. The Beavers active roster only featured one player on John Sickels' list - first baseman Paul McAnulty - and he didn't play. The Isotopes have a few more guys who are prospects, but two of them are in the rotatation (Yusmiero Petit and Renyel Pinto) and not pitching. We did get to see an inning from RH reliever Chris Resop at the end of the night.

On the other hand, former prospects were aplenty. Portland started Jack Cust, Terrmel Sledge and Bobby Hill, all of whom were highly touted at one point or another, and none of whom has made much of a mark in the majors. There were a bunch of other guys who have had major league time without a ton of success - Seth Etherton, Jimmy Anderson and Scott Seabol to name three.

It was Etherton and Seabol who had the most success on Thursday, however. Etherton, Portland's starting pitcher, began his outing with three perfect innings before running into a bit of trouble in the fourth. The biggest trouble came from Seabol, who hit two long home runs off the righty. Etherton surrendered just the two runs on three hits while striking out six over seven innings pitched. He was more effective than Albuquerque starter Jeff Fulchino. The big Isotope surrendered eight hits over 5.1 innings, with the big blows being a home run off the concrete by first baseman Jon Knott in the second, and a two run double in the sixth off the bat of center fielder Dustin Delucchi. The last few innings passed quickly, and the Beavers came out on top of a 3-2 score.

I enjoyed the game at PGE park. I was a bit surprised by the lack of turnout. The call of cheap beer brought just over 6,000 fans to the park. The crowd was easily swallowed up by the expanses of the stadium, however (as noted above) the place did get loud toward the end of the night. The Portland, Oregon metro region is probably 10 times the size of Portland, Maine, but the Sea Dogs manage to put nearly the same number of fans in the ballpark. (On Wednesday evening, the Sea Dogs outdrew the Beavers by about 1,000 fans without the call of free hot dogs or beer.) I understand that the Oregon economy isn't all that strong right now, but it seems that a city that makes overtures of hosting a major league team ought to be able to sell a few more $8 - $10 tickets to a AAA game. Parking is limited, but access is very easy - the ballpark is walking distance from the heart of downtown, and the light rail train stops right outside. However, Ralph and I paid $5 each on the street for our $10 seats, and we were just 10 rows from the field. Alas, Portland's loss was my gain.