Anybody up for a road trip to Keizer? It's a lousy stadium and low-level ball, but as of now, it's the best we can do for affiliated ball...

This year for sure.

The North County Times lays out a lengthy list of obstacles still standing in the way of this deal.

There is also really entertaining, close up, fun baseball at Lewis & Clark College; University of Portland, Pacific University; Linfield College, and the mega business operations at OSU and UO.

The first 5 are essentially free shows, a much shorter drive, and, except for that damn "clink" of the metal bats, just as good a show as the "A" leagues at Keizer.

They clink in Keizer, don't they?

No clinking in the affiliated minors. All cracking. And I like catching the occasional dude on the way up (6 of this year's world champion Giants were with Keizer at one point or another).

You see the big plan is coming together now. By moving the Beavers out this leaves Keizer. Trimet has been working on secret plans all the time. this is the reason they needed to expand the very successful WES line, plans to be release Friday afternoon at 4pm 12/31/10, all the way to Keizer.

I've come to admire Henry Paulson's recent work as a standup comedian. One new gem: “The bailouts were not for Wall Street but Main Street, the American people."
Then he tags it with the perfect follow-up laugh line: "I was never able to explain that to the people.” Yeah, no kidding.

Man, if I could write comedy like that, I'd already be rich. It would be hard to capture the entire bit, but basically, he's saying, "After Wall Street, under the direction of a few people including me, ran a fraudulent derivatives scam that could still bankrupt America, I jumped over to Treasury to help the American People by making sure Wall Street could go right on running the same scam." Thanks for thinking of us, Henry. That's some triple-A rated material you've got there. Not the phony triple-A rated crap you people were selling. I mean the real triple-A stuff.

Oh, I almost forgot: After helping to run the fraud that's led to trillions in new debt for Americans, Henry is advising America to stop spending so darn much. Thanks for the thought, and let us know if you need any more money for your soccer team.

If only we'd permitted his wraithlike Lordship to change the name of the Beavers five minutes after he arrived in town, maybe we would still have a team.

That, and if so many voters hadn't filled bubbles for Sam "Mayor Creepy" Adams.

And this for watching a largely foot sport with relatively little strategy and hours of scoreless ping pong'n movement. I guess its great if you are into foot fetishes, but even then, I imagine it would be better if it were played without shoes.

Soccer is just plain boring at all levels. If you are going to spend such time, you'd have a lot more fun watching beach volleyball. It makes channel 32-2, locally, worth watching once in awhile.

What the hell are the Portland Beavers?

Re: "When the Paulsons throw you away, it's hell."

Recycled, not thrown away. Paulson père is known for claiming he is fond of conservation. And for local fans of the Industrious Rodents, consider yourselves recycled, not tossed out.

Here in Tucson Paulson's Team wanting to play at Corbett Field vs. Tucson Electric Park was/is a controversy. The City owns Corbett and Pima Co. owns TEP. So the revenue issue was big. The owners wanted to play at Corbett because it's more central to the downtown area. But TEP is a newer facility with a nice layout, while Corbett has that old ballpark ambiance with great in-close seating, etc. I actually like Corbett for that reason.

The decision boiled down to the rights owned by another baseball owner who had rights to Corbett that he wouldn't relinquish. So, at this moment it's TEP for our glorious Paulson.

What's really sad is Major League Spring ball won't be played in Tucson anymore. All the games now are in Phoenix, even after the taxpayers paid for the great TEP facility combined with Corbett so that several Major League teams could call Tucson home. The taxpayers got axed again by the baseball Paulson-kind-of-guys.

As the legendary Connie Mack is supposed to have said:

"Baseball has to be a great game to continually survive the people who run it."

Oh well - here in Reno we have a great three year old AAA Ballpark right in downtown. Fills up often during the season; and much drier and sunnier weather to enjoy as well. Best of all, the local AAA Aces have numerous give-away days and low cost food deals throughout the baseball season. And it's always great to see a few of the players move up to the majors during the season. Also, there are four bars and restaurants as part of the stadium complex. and they all serve decent food as fairly reasonable prices(Especially when compared to what we used to pay a Safeco Field).