Ducks Baseball

To start out the Northwest BRT, I attended my final Ducks Baseball game at PK Park on a very sunny and mild spring afternoon. As the season winds down for this team, I have a few things I wish to point out.

1.) The PK Park temporary facilities are a joke. I can only hope that the University of Oregon will understand this and build a facility that has charm, ambiance, and an atmosphere conducive to a pleasant fan experience. As it is now, PK Park lacks all of those. No bathrooms, inadequate concessions, blaring music, unbiased announcers, and, heck, not even running water!

Based on the architectural drawings and representations, the new stadium is to be "the Gem of the Pac-10". I am worried, however, that this new ballpark will be just like Volcanoes Stadium in Keizer, OR. Cold, sterile, and totally lacking in charm. Even the mere fact of the possibility of it becoming this is, to an avid baseball purist, frightful. Just think, the Eugene Emeralds will be departing the freindly confines for that prospect. It makes me shudder.

2.) The Oregon Ducks are the worst baseball team I have ever seen play. They can't field, they can't hit, they can't pitch. I understand that they have a lot of freshman and sophmores playing, but the ineptitude of their play is atrocious to watch. Perhaps in a few years, they will compete.

3.) As the season wore on, and the losses for the Ducks piled on, the novelty of the program wore off and attendance declined very sharply. The organizers, in the planning stages of this season, must have thought that the community would embrace Oregon baseball for the entire season, no matter what their record was. I went to a lot of games this year, and I can say that the attendance, both in general admission and the student section, on average would fill about half of the overall grandstand (the Civil War and Opening homestand not withstanding). The organizers of Duck Baseball need to look around at other programs around the country, both professionally and amatuer, to see what they do attract people to come. It can be as simple as lowering ticket prices from the current $12. Heck, just look across town to the Eugene Emeralds. They continually draw 4-5,000 per game, and the team is usually pretty lousy. Hmmmmm...must be something to do with the ballpark???

Tomorrow morning I leave for Tacoma, WA, embarking on the Northwest Baseball Roadtrip. I have been to Cheney Stadium twice before and I have always enjoyed my time up there. I will be bringing my computer with me and updating this blog from the road.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)