By Pigskin Pete

 Now the Governor’s a fan, and the Oregon Baseball Campaign remains at the legislative plate, despite dedicated opposition to public funding for a major league baseball stadium in Portland.  Declaring “it is something I can sign” Gov. John Kitzhaber has indicated his support for a revised stadium funding proposal if the legislature votes it onto his desk.  That’s still a big “if.”  As we have said before, statewide lawmaker support for enriching the lives of Portland metro area baseball buffs is a mighty big stretch.  And Ashland senator Lenn Hannon leads the non-metro opposition, deriding the new proposal as “an insult to the people of Oregon…a sham…public theft at its worst.”

Well, even if the measure passes, there’s still a struggle  to come in the private sector to pungle up 50% more stadium-building millions than the bill includes.  We retain our original pessimism about major league ball arriving in PDX anytime soon, but then, we never thought dreams and persistence would get this far!

Praying for Fall

 The Seattle Mariners seem likely to carry a Northwest fan base right into October’s World Series.  That would truly load the plates of sports fans hereabouts, who expect to feast this fall on the newfound grid greatness of Oregon and Oregon State.

While Oregon State backers are still pinching themselves as a reminder that last year’s grid success was real (and can be repeated), Oregon Duck devotees now display a confidence in consistent victory.  This is symbolized by the 35-foot portrait of Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington that will hang until September in the middle of Manhattan.  This is a $250,000 outlay that seems trivial in comparison to the total of dollars spent in the past decade-plus to resurrect Duck football.

Oregon alumni began today’s national status-building with 1987 funding of the Casanova Center athletic facility adjacent to Autzen Stadium.  This recruiting plus led to modest winning records that enabled the UO athletic department to buy more tickets than they could hope to sell to the 1989 Independence Bowl, Oregon’s first postseason play since 1962.  The next major step in Duck development was the construction of the wondrous Moshofsky Center in 1996, an indoor practice facility second to none in the land…and another major attraction for recruits.  That $16 million outlay seems to have been well spent, with Oregon having the best winning record in its conference the past seven years.

Beavers take note

While heady with their sudden national attention, Oregon State supporters need to dig deep to sustain it.  Their stadium still passes for a good high school facility in many other parts of our great land.  It doesn’t generate enough ticket revenue to sustain a strong program.  Television exposure is enriching, but will dwindle if winning falls off and Coach Dennis Erickson’s silver tongue fails to convince enough recruits to come to Corvallis undaunted by mediocre facilities.

At any rate, both of our major state schools should maintain fan euphoria through next season.  Then we’ll see if the Beavers can join the Ducks in success over the long haul.  We don’t believe the power balance in the Pac 10 conference will ever revert back to dominance by southern California members.  Bucks count, and Washington, which had already destroyed the invincibility that used to surround USC and UCLA, remains the richest football factory in the conference, with dollars rolling in from sold-out Husky Stadium crowds, largest in the league.

Recruiting character

 Oregon fans love to go on about the shoddy character of recruits Erickson found to fuel last year’s success.  Dennis was under the gun to do good things in a hurry, and he did invite the matriculation of several players upon which other major schools had declined to take a risk.  The Beavers’ foul-plagued play and showboating in the Sugar Bowl underscored an “outlaw” reputation Erickson’s University of Miami teams earned when they won a pair of national titles.  Some of that bad rep was inherited by Erickson from travails engendered by his coaching predecessors at Miami.

To date, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti has remained free of accusations of dropping bad apples into his recruiting barrel.  His program seeks solid, not marginal, men of character (and has quickly washed out a few transgressors).  Bellotti benefits from not having to construct a winning program overnight and from obvious facility riches for recruits to ogle.

Let’s hope money can be found to take Beaver aspirations to a reputable level beyond petty questioning.

Roses and Raspberries…Roses to NBA coaching veterans who have demonstrated that income doesn’t overcome good reason when considering an employment change…Raspberries to the Whitsitt/Allen view of how to buy success and lack of loyalty to any principles during their quest for a championship…Roses to new PGE Park, a first class venue, at last, for Portland State football…Raspberries to the timing that forced what appeared to be the best PSU overall grid material in the school’s history
to play last year in a cramped prep stadium…Roses to the Seattle Mariners if they can continue to perform at a team level that can restore a lot of  fan interest to a game that recently has been dependent upon individual play to hold anyone’s interest…Raspberries to the record number of untested youngsters appearing in this year’s NBA draft, which will only compound the league’s slippage in quality of performance…Roses to players in the WNBA, who to date have shown a devotion to team play that has been the mainstay of female basketball at every level…Raspberries to the huge amount of attention paid to auto racing, which fails to convince this correspondent that watching machines go round in a circle deserves coverage as an athletic event…Roses to Salt Lake City for overcoming graft and greed to qualify for staging a Winter Olympics that will reach the TV sets of western snow sport fans at reasonable, prime time hours.