Somehow It's Still Here

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Location: Portland freaking Oregon!

Somehow It's Still Here

Post by Pounder » Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:20 pm

I didn't have this league lasting three years. All the ingredients were there: Chico wanting to showboat for an upgrade to whatever, ownership in Portland wanting to "fill a gap" in the city, a shyster from one of the old western Indy Pro leagues trying to make a go in Lodi, and whatever filler could be found.

Lodi had their one-year run and quit. They got replaced by a Yuba City team sharing the same ballpark with Marysville, and that failed (though the remaining team is now coined the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox).

Chico is Chico. Medford, who for some reason left the demonstrably better West Coast League, also remains (geography? maybe?).

A Sacramento team that wanted to renovate an old park in town was an all-road team in 2016 and apparently gave up the ghost in favor of a team in the formerly very small town / now distant Sacramento suburb of Lincoln; still a going concern.

In place of that Lodi/Yuba City team... San Francisco Seals, who will be playing out of College of Alameda (East Bay), and is an interesting extension of a fairly large youth travel baseball operation.

Portland had a better two-year run than I envisioned... to the point where they're joining the WCL this year. Replacing them is Klamath Falls, making a far better travel partner for Medford, but also a WCL reject.
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