Mapping the path

NORTHWEST BASEBALL

Portland Pickles

A perfect grand finale: Walker Stadium with the Portland Pickles, a West Coast League team known for having a party atmosphere. We celebrate Keep Portland Weird Night with the Unipiper, a streaker, the Portland Sleestak, and the Pickles mascot, Dillon.

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A “happening” is defined as “a partly improvised or spontaneous piece of theatrical or other artistic performance, typically involving audience participation.” I can’t think of a better description for a Portland Pickles game, especially on Keep Portland Weird Night.

The Pickles are a collegiate summer league team in the West Coast League that has gained national attention for their wild promotions and bawdy social media stunts. They made the front page of the Wall Street Journal when their mascot, Dillon the Pickle, was lost by Delta Airlines on a flight from the Dominican Republic. After several days, Dillon was dropped off in his duffel bag in the middle of the night on a porch in Portland, only to be snatched up within hours by a porch pirate. The ensuing search led to rewards being offered by dozens of Portland businesses. Eventually, the giant grinning Pickle was found on a bus and returned to a Voodoo Doughnut shop in northeast Portland to be claimed by the team.

Some of this is probably true. Maybe all of it is true. You can never really tell with the Pickles.

On the grand finale of our 16-ballpark road trip, from beginning to end, Walker Stadium felt like a party. As we entered the gates, a DJ played groovy beats while bubbles floated past patrons. Keeping Portland plenty weird, staff in randomly strange outfits danced with Dillon, who interpreted the night’s theme with a tie-dye shirt, sideways cap, and dirty knees.

Opened in 1956 and renovated in 2016, Walker Stadium is located in Lents Park in southeast Portland. It is named for Charles B. Walker, a softball coach and the city’s first Sports Director in the 1930s.

Professional baseball in Portland dates to the 1890s. Old team names in the city’s history include the Webfoots, Browns, Beavers, Pippins, Colts, Ducks, Rosebuds, and of course, the legendary Portland Mavericks. The Pickles first played in the collegiate Great West League in 2016-17 before joining the WCL in 2018. They had the best record in the league (37-17) in their first WCL season but fell to the Corvallis Knights in the playoffs. They are still looking for their first title.

The Pickles are owned by former NFL punter and Super Bowl champion Jon Ryan; and Alan Miller, CEO of COLLiDE, a boutique marketing agency that includes Official League hats and the expanding umbrella of “COLLiDE Sports” baseball teams. When the WCL season was canceled due to Covid in 2020, the owners founded the collegiate Wild Wild West League, playing in Aurora, Oregon, and consisting of four teams: the Pickles, Portland Gherkins, Gresham Greywolves, and West Linn Knights. That league has since expanded to eight teams, with four playing in Cleburne, Texas. Cleburne is also home to a former Minor League team, the independent Cleburne Railroaders, and they too are owned by Ryan and Miller, partnering with Texas Rangers Chief Operating Officer Neil Leibman.

In 2023, the duo’s success helped them land their biggest team yet: the Lake County Captains, High-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. Soon after, mascots from across the COLLiDE extended baseball universe gathered at Classic Park in Eastlake, Ohio — home of the Captains — to celebrate the growing family of teams. Shenanigans ensued, including a clip shared on social media of a cigarette-smoking celebrity giraffe wearing underwear and gruffly singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Buckle up, northern Ohio.

Just behind home plate at Walker Stadium is the Wickles Pickles Party Deck, where fans can order snacks, beer, and a variety of cocktails featuring pickle juice. There is a VIP seating section on each side of the deck for special guests, where public address announcer Joe Simons did much of his work on the night, bantering informally between plays with on-field host and local comedian Jeremiah Coughlin.

Pickles-themed artwork created by Portland artists for specific homestands lined a fence on the first-base side. Kids near the entrance went to work on their own drawings, decorating a block of wood with pro-Pickles sentiments and some disparaging remarks for tonight’s opponent, the Victoria HarbourCats.

Both the Pickles and the HarbourCats would finish their seasons in the playoffs. Unfortunately, both would get swept in the first round — Portland by southern Washington’s Ridgefield Raptors, and Victoria by northern Washington’s Bellingham Bells, the eventual runner-up to the Corvallis Knights.

I stopped by the merchandise tent to have a look at the jerseys and hats on offer. The Pickles script on the home jersey is excellent, classic; and I love the midnight-blue away jersey we had seen in Yakima, with its Dillon-themed baseball patch across the heart.

Dad and I met up with our good friends Adam and Heather, who had joined us earlier in the day in the Willamette Valley. We were lucky enough to get them seats right next to us. On top of all of this sensory input, I had been invited to throw out the first pitch by the Pickles. I had thrown two good first pitches on the trip by then — over the plate but high in Cowlitz and a strike in the Tri-Cities. But the pressure felt a bit more intense this time in Portland.

I walked through the Pickles dugout and onto the field. After a nice introduction from Simons, I took a careful windup and threw a strike. Exhale.

I was thrilled by what I had accomplished. In front of a packed crowd, my dad, and some of my closest friends, I had thrown a first-pitch strike on the final day of our big baseball road trip. But I knew I was a mere warmup act for the Unipiper.

The Unipiper is a performer who rides a unicycle while playing a flaming bagpipe and wearing both a kilt and a Darth Vader helmet. Normal stuff. He rose to the occasion on this Keep Portland Weird Night, guiding his unicycle directly over the mound, with blazing fire and “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 emanating from his bagpipe. He then tossed his ball to the catcher, who hopped aside to grab it and then back again to frame the pitch as a strike. The Unipiper then celebrated his achievement by playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as he circled the bases.

So it was slightly more impressive than what I did.

Shortly after, Dad and I got to take a photo with Dillon. It felt like my entire life had led up to this perfect moment.

On to the game. The Pickles started left-hander Peyton Jones, a freshman out of Cal State Fullerton. He put the HarbourCats down in order in the first. Jace Walker (Temple College) took the mound for Victoria. The right-hander from Texas hit Portland’s leadoff hitter, catcher Evan Leibl (University of Oklahoma), who eventually scored the Pickles first run.

The Pickles got a strong turnout for this Sunday afternoon game before July 4, with just under 4,000 fans in attendance. Families packed not just the stands but the grass berms down both lines and a string of picnic tables beyond the outfield fence.

The bullpens for both teams are beyond the outfield seating at Walker Stadium, and they are a bit, well, informal. Spartan, you might say.

On the field, the game quieted down until the fourth inning, when HarbourCats right fielder Colton Moore (University of Arizona) hit a two-run homer off Jones. Portland responded in the bottom half with three singles and two walks, retaking the lead 3-2 and chasing Walker from the game.

During my wanderings, I bumped into the Portland Sleestak, another local figure on hand to keep Portland weird. The Sleestaks were lizard creatures in the 1970s TV show “Land of the Lost.” The Portland iteration is the creation of Brent Marr, who was a fan of the show and now appears at public events — or just in a park by surprise — wearing his glorious homemade costume.

More weirdness: Between innings, while the Pickles defense tossed the ball around, a fan jumped the outfield fence and began to frolic about, pausing for an attempted selfie with left fielder Keith Jones II. Simons announced that we had a streaker, though the perpetrator was wearing shorts. He jogged for a bit toward the infield, looking away, and then was absolutely leveled by a blindside shoulder from Dillon. Our hero then sat on the streaker until security arrived to handcuff him. Simons led the crowd in booing the streaker as he was led away.

Was it real? Or was it convenient to have a “streaker” show up on Keep Portland Weird Night? Does it matter? In any case, the video went viral, of course. It’s not often that you see a freakishly large pickle sending a man and his beer flying with a hit an NFL safety would admire.

Back on the field, the Pickles got rolling again in the bottom of the fifth. Two walks and a single loaded the bases for the home team.

That brought to the plate Eddie Saldivar Jr., a left-handed-hitting sophomore out of Long Beach State. In 2022, Saldivar Jr. hit .278 with two home runs in 35 regular-season games with the Pickles. He launched one of those homers on the first pitch he saw from HarbourCats reliever Walker Bordovsky (San Jacinto College), pulling it over the right-field fence for a grand slam.

When the Pickles score runs at Walker Stadium, fans “raise the chairs” in celebration — a tradition that began with the Pickles bullpen raising their folding chairs over their heads on a run-scoring play. Saldivar Jr.’s heroics sent many a chair into the air. Portland would go on to score three more runs in the inning, seven in all, to take a 10-2 lead after five.

I didn’t have a big appetite, but I wanted a good snack. After perusing various pickled offerings, I settled on some fried pickle chips and a Perfect Pitch IPA, a Pickles-branded beer from Portland’s Away Days Brewing.

Effective relief pitching from both sides produced three scoreless innings through the eighth. The setting sun brought proper Northwest baseball skies heavy with moisture, brilliantly illuminated.

Victoria managed just one more run in the ninth, and the Pickles won it 10-3.

The night had been one big celebration of things Dad and I love: baseball, travel, our good friends, deeply silly behavior, and, of course, each other. The game and everything around it had been a perfectly concentrated microcosm of our 19 days together, traveling more than 2,000 miles to see 450 innings of baseball in 16 different ballparks. In each, we experienced communities of people having fun together — outdoors, sharing the great game of baseball, supporting talented players chasing their dreams. Baseball brought us all here together.