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Civil War Wounds; Baseball in Portland

March 29, 2009 in Sports | 1 comment

Oregon staring pitcher Bennett Whitmore

Oregon staring pitcher Bennett Whitmore

Today I attended my first full baseball game of the season, having previously seen pieces of three separate games, but no complete contests.  My family and I witnessed the reconstituted Oregon Ducks take on Oregon State Beavers in a Civil War contest at PGE Park.  After having split the first two games of the series, the Sunday rubber game showed exactly how far ahead in talent and experience the Beavers program is when compared with the Ducks (not surprising, given the Beavers are only one year removed from back-to-back NCAA titles).Oregon State pitcher Jorge Reyes (2007 College World Series Most Outstanding Player) was marvelous, giving up only one run in his seven innings pitched, while striking out six and allowing only two hits. The Beavers took advantage of every opportunity presented to them and displayed superb situational hitting in route to a convincing victory.

Beyond the 8-1 score, nine walks, three wild pitches, three errors, and several instances of puzzling defensive lapses surrendered by the Ducks, the day was not a total loss.  For the first time in my life, I was able to root for a Ducks team play my favorite sport - and despite the throttling they received, it was a pretty good day spent with my parents, Brandon, and 13,709 fans of baseball in the state of Oregon.

13,709 watch the Ducks get slaughtered

13,709 watch the Ducks get slaughtered

For me, this is what it is all about: over two days in Portland, over 29,000 fans attended (or at least purchased tickets for) two college baseball games. Granted, a large amount of the interest likely had to do with the rivalry between the two schools, but this goes to show once again how much interest in baseball there is in Portland, and in the state of Oregon as a whole. This comes at important juncture for baseball In Portland, as it was recently announced that a new stadium for the PCL’s Portland Beavers will be built to accommodate MLS’ expansion to Portland.

The stadium being proposed at this point in time is a roughly 9,000 seat park to be located either in the Rose Quarter (taking the place of Memorial Coliseum) or in SE Portland’s Lents Park (please let it be the Rose Quarter). The city of Portland should take into account the future of sports in Portland as plans are developed. Hopefully, they will build the park with a potential expansion and upgrade to Major League facilities in mind, regardless of Portland Beavers owner Merritt Paulson’s likely interest in preserving the market for his AAA club.

At some point in the next decade Portland will have a genuine opportunity to attract a Major League team, much like the one that was wasted in 2004 when the Montreal Expos chose to relocate to Washington, D.C. This opportunity may come sooner than expected, as it was recently announced (and has remained under the radar) that the Oakland Athletics will no longer negotiate with the cities of Oakland or Fremont for a new ballpark. San Jose is said to be interested in starting negotiations for an A’s ballpark, but the San Francisco Giants hold the MLB territory rights to Santa Clara County, which could prove problematic for such a move. If this cannot be resolved, Portland would become a natural relocation option for the team.

The only other serious candidates for relocation (Las Vegas and Sacramento) each have much larger obstacles standing in the way of actually attracting MLB – economics (Sacramento has fared worse than Portland in the recent economic meltdown, is smaller, and, let’s face it, just isn’t as attractive in general… sorry, Gio) and gambling (last time I checked, MLB was not a fan of gambling… ask Joe Jackson or Pete Rose). I know this is all a pipe dream at this point; and not a very realistic one given Portland’s unwillingness for bold action, but a guy can dream, right? Besides, as much as I love the Ducks, I’d much rather join 30,000 Oregonians in rooting for a Portland Beavers team to take down the Seattle Mariners in an AL West matchup.

Spring Training, 2008

April 23, 2008 in Random, Sports | No comments

Giovanni and I; Phoenix Memorial Stadium

Keeping with this line of thought, I repeated the Spring Training trip last month, this time bringing Giovanni along on the road portion with Miller joining us mid-week in Phoenix. This year’s takeaways: I will never, ever make this drive again - all subsequent trips to the desert southwest will be made in the air; game tickets will be purchased no later than the end of January; and more sights will be seen around the town and state on scheduled days off, gained from the lack of four travel days. Among the sights yet to be seen – The Grand Canyon, Barringer Meteorite Crater, Sedona, Saguaro National Park, and the ghost town where the Brady Bunch was wrongly jailed on their way to the canyon (I know, this was filmed on a set… but how cool would that be?).

Jack Cust's 2007 Portland Beavers Jersey

But enough of that – the last month has seen a few other items worthy of note. The most significant has been a change to my role at work. I am no longer traveling in my claims adjusting duties, rather, I will be controlling my files and conducting coverage investigations from the comfort of my northwest Portland apartment, which means less work travel, more freedom to make plans outside of work, and hopefully, the ability to advance myself a little further in my career in the not so distant future… hopefully.

If the insurance thing doesn’t work out… (I’ve only been doing it for five years now) I’ve always got minor league basketball to fall back on. That’s right, I served as an official scorer a few weeks ago for the Portland Chinooks of the International Basketball League. Sadly, this was even more stressful than my day job, as it was the first game I have scored since at least high school, and the final score ended up being 125-112. That’s a lot of points, by the way. I didn’t screw up too badly… at least not in the end. After the first half I failed to calibrate my mind to the fact that the teams do in fact switch hoops, something that resulted in my scoring the teams exactly opposite what they should have been for the first half of the third quarter. After a brief panic attack, I figured it out and corrected my error… good thing no one reads this website…

Speaking of this website, I am currently sketching out some ideas for the first major overhaul since adopting the Saturatedpratt name nearly six years ago. Hopefully the coming months will bring a better overall design, working comments, a dedicated sports page, and possibly even a pod cast covering news, commentary, an attempt at humor, and of course, music. This is pretty ambitious, and I make no promises, but I do hope to have all of this (or at least the pieces I decide to keep) online in the coming months. Stay tuned for more details.

Assorted Travels, Spring-Summer 2007

July 26, 2007 in Sports, Travel | No comments

Oh, the places I have been! Since I last graced this site with an update, I have experienced Spring Training, visited Denver twice, driven through Wyoming and into South Dakota, seen Albuquerque, flown into Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League and ventured into Montana, then Wyoming for a second time. (Technically, the Spring Training and Dakota trips occurred prior to the last post, but since I wrote the post before I took the trips, I’m counting it… sue me.)

In short, a lot has happened. So in lieu of making an in-depth post about each of the individual trips, I will burn through them at a rapid-fire pace so I can get on with making a real update… look at this as a sort of “here’s what happened last season on…” portion of a television show, except instead of some actor named Chris Pratt, you get me. Speaking of lawsuits, I’ve got to go after that guy.

Our journey begins on Wednesday, March 8, 2007 when I set off in my Honda Civic Hybrid for the sunny southwest and the six-week orgy of baseball that signals the actually new year – Spring Training. On the way I went through Idaho (Saw the Blue Turf), Utah (saw the Mormon Temple… impressive, and a little scary), Las Vegas (got frustrated by traffic, then gave up and went to Hoover Dam), and finally all nine Cactus League ballparks. Miller joined me on the 15th and stayed through the weekend. I caught a foul ball off the bat of Chicago Cub Ronnie Cedeno, while sitting in the first row of Tuscon Electric Park, and was horribly sun burnt. In addition, I saw the best scoreboard announcement ever – skeptics may say I only caught a small segment of scrolling text, but that’s why they are skeptics. Personally, I can’t agree more with the scoreboard operator.

Upon returning to Oregon, I was immediately sent off to South Dakota for work, after first flying into Denver and driving through Wyoming to reach my destination. While there, I visited Mount Rushmore, and the Crazy Horse Memorial, which has been under construction for a ridiculous 59 years I would have contributed to the construction effort with a donation had the visitor’s center been open when I arrived… instead, I simply stole a look at the sculpture… I’m sure that’s a theme the Lakota are used to. On my way back to Denver, I found myself stuck in the heaviest snowstorm I have ever experienced, complete with freeway driving in complete whiteout conditions. I have a feeling Crazy Horse intended on getting his revenge.

April was relatively quiet, consisting mainly of attempting to recover from the month of constant travel that March brought.

With May came yet another trip to Denver, this time for a meeting after which I took a few personal days, saw the Denver Mint and the Rockies beat the Giants, and ventured into New Mexico to catch an Albuquerque Isotopes game. While I did not enjoy a hot dog brimming with southwestern flavors, I did enjoy the victory the Portland Beavers achieved over the ‘Topes. Oddly though, I ended up being seated next to a Portlander who is currently living in Albuquerque, which meant that the two people wearing Portland Beavers garb in a crowd of several thousand were sitting right next to each other, and had never before met. It was a little strange, but it seemed to make sense. Isotopes Stadium was by far the best minor league facility I have seen yet in my travels, easily eclipsing the next night’s stop, Colorado Springs’ Security Service Field. My takeaways from this trip: Jesus is HUGE in Colorado Springs, as are many of the women; and the omnipresent hold the military has on this region is simply unbearable. I could never live there.

Early July saw a quick three-day jaunt to Las Vegas to witness the beginning of Greg Oden’s career as a Portland Trailblazer, facing off against the once-great Boston Celtics. In fact, I sat courtside for Oden’s first game, which would have been nice on its own. However, my attempt to slum-up the normal haunts of the beautiful people brought with it the somewhat surreal experience of sitting right next to the Celtics’ brain trust of GM Danny Ainge and head coach Doc Rivers, who were joined by onetime wunderkind Sebastian Telfair. In all, it was a little awkward when Telfair sat down… I mean, aside from maybe Pacman Jones, there really isn’t anyone with whom I have less in common. On top of that, he was absolutely swimming in some sort of cologne.

When he arrived, I simply gave him a welcoming “hey”, to which he responded with a nod. It was a good enough response for me. The Celtics ended up blowing out Greg Oden and the Blazers, but not before I exchanged comments with Telfair over a few horrible calls, and had a conversation with Rivers about Portland and how great the fans are, and how Rivers would kill to have two bigs like those gracing the Blazers’ roster. The guy sitting next to me caught the scene on my camera, but I think he had a case of the shakes, judging by the blurriness of the photo. Giovanni came down that evening and we spent the rest of the weekend taking in games, people watching, and losing a small amount of money in penny slots while stocking up on complimentary drinks.

As was the case in March, immediately upon my return I was sent to the Mountain Time Zone on business, this time to Billings, Montana. While there, I took in my first Pioneer League games, first in Billings where the Mustangs beat the Orem Owlz (they should have had to spot the Stangs 10 runs for the Z in their name alone), then in Casper, Wyoming, where I saw the hometown Rockies get trounced by the Missoula Osprey. More importantly, I ended up with two Pioneer League baseballs as souvenirs that night – the first a homerun ball off the bat of Osprey second baseman Taylor Harbin that came sailing toward me while I was parking my trusty rental car beyond the left field fence prior to entering the ballpark, and the second a foul ball that apparently only I noticed land while standing in line for a bratwurst. While in Casper, I struck up a conversation with the guy who was sitting behind me after he had recognized the Isotopes hat I was wearing. It turns out he also went to Spring Training, and tries to see as many ballparks as he can while traveling, including the California League and the Pacific Coast League. It was a little comforting, and at the same time a little troubling, seeing as he was praising my dedication in driving from Billings to Casper, only to turn around an return to Billings after two and a half hours of Rookie League ball. Also, he was probably in his 60s, which made me feel a bit like an RV-ing snowbird, and less like a guy who just turned 27… failing that, I should at least bring a girl along next time, so long as I don’t find her in Colorado Springs.

Plans, Moving, Etc.

March 8, 2006 in Work | No comments

Another month has gone, and a lot of changes have occurred in the life of Chris, most notably, the presence of a new job. I still work in insurance, and with the same company, but have moved from handling bodily injury claims to large property losses. It may be a small move in the grand scheme of things, but I feel better about the work that I do now, which goes a long way towards helping the psyche. Most importantly, I never again have to know the value of three chiropractic visits, four months after a minor auto accident.

(Unless of course I go to law school and become an ambulance chaser, but then of course I would have a personal stake in the matter, which could possibly wipe out my bad feelings of valuing injuries.) After all, I’d have to do something to earn my money and pay off student loans before doing pro-bono civil liberties cases and work on behalf of non-profits…

Which leads us to point #2 – as part of a long-term effort in self-improvement, I have commenced finishing off my efforts to (eventually) get into grad school. I completed one test a few weeks ago, and still have one more to go before I’ll be done with the tests for colleges of education, and I’ve been reviewing my LSAT study book, as I think I probably will end up taking the LSAT this summer/fall. Depending on its outcome, I’ll decide which path I want to take, and will seriously start looking at grad schools towards the end of this year. When I will enroll, and whether or not I can get in are different subjects entirely, but at least school is on the list.

Another change is in where I am living – in late December I moved to Tigard, in a brand new (and considerably less sketchy) apartment, which is closer to work and farther away from the roving bands of near-feral children who patrolled the parking lots of my old complex. Pleasant as the new place may be, I have a feeling my stay will be a short one. I signed a 6-month lease, and seeing as there is absolutely nothing to do in Tigard, I will likely be moving again in June, hopefully to the city. You see, Giovanni recently acquired my dream apartment – a large one bedroom in a classic building, just two blocks from PGE Park – for about the same amount of rent I am currently paying. With baseball season starting up, I desperately wish I lived within walking distance to a ballpark… and pubs, and Powell’s… and by this summer, I aim to be.

This update does not contain a semi-humorous, self-absorbed story about a quasi-adventure I partook in – for this I apologize… that will be coming soon enough. Rather, this update is sort of a self-congratulatory note on what I’ve been able to do in the past two months. You see, in late November, it became fairly clear to me that my life was not headed in a direction where I wanted it to be – namely, 25+ years of corporate servitude to be eventually interrupted by either downsizing or some creative, public, and quite graphic form of suicide (or what I like to call, societal downsizing). I instituted a 4-part plan to put myself where I want to be, or at least in a position where I would be able to choose among several possibilities. I am happy to say that as of this Friday, half of this plan will have already neared completion, and the other half is dependent upon completing the grad school stuff I’ve already discussed. And it only took 25 years to do! Who knows – in another 25, I just might be married, or perhaps, I will be in grad school.

Finally Working; Visiting Eugene

February 23, 2004 in Life, Travel, Work | No comments

After four weeks, the reality of living as a regular working stiff is beginning to set in. Sure, I was going to work daily before I left for Seattle, but I wasn’t really working. Now, I am actually doing something- talking to people on the phone, listening to the various excuses people give in an attempt to let me know that it’s not really their fault for hitting that car that was parked and minding its own business on the side of the street… it’s gone quite well so far- I’ve only been cussed at a few times, been hung up on twice, and heard one lecture on Benny Hinn. Then again, I’m only getting a paltry three claims a day, so I still may crack when I’m upped to unlimited.

Normally I would have started a post with something non-work related, but really my life has been consumed with work of late. I leave the house in McMinnville at 6:40am, arrive in Lake Oswego at about 7:45, work until 4:30pm, hit the road immediately and arrive back at home in McMinnville anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30pm, depending on traffic. In other words, I don’t do a whole lot more than work during the week. As a testament to this, I have gone out precisely six times on weeknights since starting my job on December 15 (not counting the Seattle excursions). This must change- and to facilitate change, I must move out of McMinnville. This would free up the roughly three hours I spend in my car each day for fun stuff, like Blazer games, riding bikes, looking at stuff, and most importantly, NOT cursing at the jackass trying to merge into the right quarter panel of my car on highway 99w east of Dundee every night at 5:15pm. What a life it would be… hopefully it will be a reality by March 1.

Despite my commute, I have managed to have a pretty good time the last couple of weekends. Two weekends ago I traveled to Eugene with Derek and went out with Miller, Wells, Autumn, and last but certainly not least, Gio. We didn’t do too much- hit a few bars, talked a lot, and I lost my requisite three games of pool, but it was great to see Gio again. That Saturday was Valentine’s day, and the evening was spent by first going to ice cream with Vanessa, then picking up my honorary Valentine Leah and going to Sam Bond’s Garage to see one of her co-workers’ bands. It was pretty fun, but I didn’t know anyone so I was a little on the quiet side… but it was live music, and Leah, so I had fun nonetheless.

There have been a few adventures, I guess… traveling to Portland one Sunday with Miller to partake in “Sunday Sportsday,” for instance. We first saw the Blazers beat the Seattle Supersonics at the Rose Garden in what was to be Rasheed Wallace’s last game as a Blazer, then we walked over to Memorial Coliseum where we purchased tickets to the Portland Winterhawks game against Moose Jaw. In other words, we saw two sporting events in the span of six hours, interrupted only by the hour or so we had to kill by walking around the Oregon Convention Center and MLK Boulevard. It was a busy, full day that in turn led to a couple hundred miles of driving over the weekend, but it was really fun, and I got to buy my discounted Bonzi Wells #6 jersey at the Blazer team store.

Aside from that, I’ve really accomplished very little in the last month. I went out with Bambi on Saturday (nothing beats the McMinnville club scene… sigh.) and I saw Neil Young with Wells and Ma and Pa Wells on Friday, but aside from those outings, it’s really been a so-so couple of weeks in the northern Willamette Valley. I guess that’s the reason I’ve chosen the picture that I have for this update. I snapped it out the passenger side window of the Bimmer one morning on my way to work. Really, it’s not all the good of a picture- it’s all blurry, and the colors aren’t quite as brilliant as they were in person. However, it’s a good reminder of what it is to live here. However little a photo of Mt. Hood against a sunrise may mean in the scheme of things, it’s something that you just can’t see in Eugene, and it’s just one little reason why I’m glad to be back in the Portland area.

Sorry- no introspective diatribe on this round of Saturatedpratt… I guess I’ll save that for the next time, although I have appreciated the feedback from the last update. As for the things I am working on for this site- I’ve been gradually adding to three major projects, and I think I’m beginning another… the only question is whether or not I will actually progress far enough in any of them to put anything online. I suspect I will, at least with two of them. So in case you‘re at all interested, feel free to check the writings page for one short story, and possibly a longer story, or series of stories in the near future… I don’t know what it is really, it’s still taking shape. That’s it for now.

Rejection Letter & Baseball - Just Another Day

May 1, 2003 in Life, School, Sports, Travel | No comments

While a few months have gone by between updates, not a whole lot has really changed. This of course is not entirely true- for instance; I found out that I will officially be graduating in June, and that I was not accepted to the UO College of Education secondary ed program. This wasn’t entirely unexpected- my GPA isn’t the best in the world, and I have very little education experience (save for the 18+ years that I have spent in school) but this news was disappointing still. After all, my test scores were very good, and of all places to gain experience, aren’t you supposed to do it while training to be a teacher? Oh well.

About ten minutes after the game, the good folks at Safeco field decided that it was time for us to leave, and instead of allowing the customary trip around the ballpark to look at stuff that so many people normally take, they began to shut off the stadium’s interior lights. It was really an odd experience, something similar to about 9:45 pm at K-Mart. While attempting to take photographs of the ballpark and essentially soak up the atmosphere of a Major League park, the stadium gradually grew darker, accompanied by announcements of the time and a message asking everyone to leave. After a brief group shot (pictured without flash to the right) we got the hint and left the 300 level. Apparently the city of Seattle also closes at about 10:00, as the gentleman on the concourse who I later dubbed the Sodo Asshole also forbade me to photograph the city skyline from the northwest corner of the ballpark.

We all eventually left, making our way south on I-5, (missing the Krispy Kreme in the process) and arrived back in Eugene at about 3:00 am. In all, it was a very successful trip, though next time, I will have someone else drive at least part of the way.

Beyond the trip to Seattle, Spring term has been occupied primarily by work and the search for a new house. In other words, most of my time is spent either chasing bad guys or looking for shelter. As far as the latter is concerned, the highlight of the quest to date may actually be the sign at the Abby’s Pizza on Barger Road, which is quite possibly the most patriotic thing I have ever seen, despite the curious wording. (so what, I’m immature)

As far as the future goes, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. Not getting in to the education program threw a bit of a wrench into my plans for the immediate future, but I still intend to eventually teach. For the time being, I suppose that I’ll commence the great job search, as my job at DPS is still officially temporary, while also attempting to apply to a few other local schools (Pacific, WOU to name two.) As for this site, I’ll probably be moving it to a new server sometime in the next few months, possibly even adopting a new domain name as well. For now, I think that I’ll get back to work on my LIB 199 Baseball Research project. Who knows- if all goes well, this little project will turn in to a book earning me millions, and I’ll retire at 25.