Spokane Indians
Dad and I head into eastern Washington for a hot Sunday game with the Spokane Indians, the High-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. We get a tour of 64-year-old Avista Stadium, with beer bats, a mascot’s birthday, and a secret safe! We finish off a fine day at seafood hotspot Anthony’s at Spokane Falls.
Dad and I drove northeast from Yakima, past fields of hops being trained to grow vertically on strings. We ascended into the semi-arid deserts of eastern Washington, crossing a more passive stretch of the Columbia River at Vernita Bridge.
After about three hours of driving, we reached Spokane, the second-largest city in Washington state. But we didn’t have time for pleasantries: We had a Sunday day game to attend at Avista Stadium with the Spokane Indians, the High-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.
Minor League baseball in Spokane goes back to 1892 with the Spokane Bunchgrassers of the Pacific Northwest League. Other early names include the Blue Stockings, Smoke Eaters, and Hawks. But local baseball has been dominated by the Spokane Indians, a name that first appeared in 1903. In all, Spokane has been affiliated with nine different Major League teams and has played in 11 different leagues, largely as the Indians.
One of the club’s heydays began in 1958, when the Triple-A Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League moved into Spokane’s brand-new Avista Stadium. The Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate brought outstanding talent to the field, including a historically great crop of youngsters under Indians manager Tommy Lasorda (Bill Buckner, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, Bobby Valentine, Tom Paciorek, and Doyle Alexander) who in 1970 went 94-52 and swept the Hawaii Islanders for the PCL championship.
In 1971, the Indians relocated to Albuquerque, and a new Spokane Indians squad sprouted in the Northwest League for a single season. That’s when the Portland Beavers moved to Spokane, giving the city another Triple-A ballclub to enjoy. In 1982, that team moved to Las Vegas to become the Stars, replaced by yet another Spokane Indians team in the Northwest League. The current iteration has enjoyed considerable success ever since, winning eight league titles and drawing consistent turnouts; in 2022, the team averaged 3,555 fans per game, second in the Northwest League.
Just inside the gate, I met Bud Bareither, Director of Public Relations for the Indians, who had offered to give me a tour of the ballpark. We started with Vice President and General Manager Kyle Day, who showed me a floor safe discovered during a 2013 renovation of the ballpark.
“We were in a temporary office in the clubhouse on folding tables,” Day said. “The construction crew came over and said, ‘What do you want to do with the safe in the old office?’ We said, ‘We already moved the safe.’ They said, “No: the safe.’ So under a filing cabinet, under a carpet, was this safe. We still have not opened it. We don’t know what’s in it. Maybe we’ll do a promotion someday — guess what’s in the safe! It may be empty. It may be Tommy Lasorda’s lasagna recipe.”
Avista Stadium’s original construction took place in about four months in 1958 on the site of the county fairgrounds. It cost $550,000 at the time (about $17 million in today’s money) and has been renovated five times.
We’ve got a lot of upgrades coming in the next few years to keep up with MLB standards,” Bareither said. “The majority of them will be on the player’s side. Because this facility was built in 1958, everything is small and cramped. The teams, the coaches the trainers — everything has expanded so much since then.”
Bareither led us up to the broadcast booth for a birds-eye view of the ballpark. There we ran into Mike Boyle, voice of the Indians since 2011; and AquaSox broadcaster Pat Dillon.
Bareither took me out to right field to see the Coors Light Caboose, a group suite in a replica train car that can accommodate more than 80 people (in and outside of the caboose).
The Kids Zone is nearby. Team mascots Doris the Spokanosaurus and late-inning rally fish Ribby the Redband Trout offered kids colored chalk for some pre-game artistry.
Bareither took me back into the front office area, where I came across the upcoming singer of the National Anthem, dressed in star-spangled glory and practicing refrains with her Dad. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.
One last order of business: The excellent second-row seats we had acquired for the game were going to melt us into our chairs on this hot Sunday. Bareither helped us exchange those tickers for a nice spot higher up in the shade — a final bit of good hospitality from the director of public relations.
It was the birthday of the team’s oldest mascot, Otto the Spokanasaurus, who was decked out in formals for the occasion. A variety of other local mascots showed up to help celebrate.
Both the Indians and the AquaSox were hovering around the .500 mark to start the game, and neither would make it to the Northwest League playoffs. But the lineup cards included the top two Rockies prospects (right fielder Zac Veen and designated hitter Drew Romo) starting for Spokane and the top prospect for the Mariners (shortstop Noelvi Marte) playing for Everett.
Spokane sent Andrew Quezada to the mound. He cruised through the first but gave up two runs on three hits in the second, including a home run to center by AquaSox catcher Ty Duvall. Everett started Jimmy Joyce, a 16th-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in 2021, who finished his year with a 7-12 record and a 5.58 ERA. Two walks and a single off Joyce produced a first-inning run for the Indians. The western Washingtonians led 2-1 after two.
I walked down the left-field line to see a section of the Rim of Honor, celebrating Spokane greats from the past. On the field, both starting pitchers had settled in, and the teams went scoreless in the third and fourth innings.
I took another chance on a ballpark burger for lunch, this time a bacon cheeseburger with barbecue sauce and an onion ring. Everything was top quality, but burgers never taste quite right to me unless they are freshly grilled. Make no mistake, though — I ate every last thing pictured here.
I walked around the outside of the ballpark to find a kid challenging the speed-pitch machine, and a few others playing a languid game of Wiffle Ball under the hot sun.
I also noticed some interesting signage around the park using the indigenous Salish language. In 2006, the Indians announced a partnership with the Spokane Tribe of Indians, collaborating on a redesigned logo that included a version in Salish. Eight years later, the Indians began wearing home jerseys with the Salish rendering of “Spokane” (“Sp’q’n’i?” or Spo-ka-NEE) across the front. The close relationship between the tribe and the club is a model in sports for the celebration of indigenous people as proud representatives of the team and community.
The Salish influence was very much on display in the team store, where I found a bounty of excellent hat and shirt selections. Options included a depiction of a KC-135 Stratotanker, part of “Operation Fly Together,” a partnership between the team and nearby Fairchild Air Force Base. I went with the powder-blue “Sp’q’n’i?” cap.
In the bottom of the fifth, Spokane singled twice. After a sacrifice bunt, Joyce struck out Spokane center fielder Braden Ward on a wild pitch. AquaSox catcher Duvall attempted to get the runner out at first but threw the ball away, scoring both baserunners. The Indians were back on top, 3-2.
Spokane mascots and on-field hosts ran a variety of activities between innings: a hippity-hop race, singing “Happy Birthday” to Otto, brushing the bases with an oversized toothbrush, and a race to transport recyclables from one container to the other.
I became aware of the existence of beer bats at the ballpark. I walked over to the first-base side to claim mine when I ran into Ribby the Redband Trout, who appears in the late innings of games to rally the team with his Ribby Shake dance. He had just appeared on the field before I began my sudsy sojourn.
Grant Lavigne
The floodgates opened in the bottom of the seventh for the Indians. AquaSox reliever Brendan McGuigan came into the game and hit the first batter he faced. After getting an out and giving up a walk, he hit another batter, loading the bases for Spokane. The next batter was Veen, and he too was hit by a pitch, forcing in a run.
After a sacrifice fly and another throwing error from Duvall, first baseman Grant Lavigne homered to right, capping off a five-run inning and making the score 8-2 Spokane.
Indians relievers Anderson Bido and Boby Johnson shut the door on the AquaSox, and Spokane won the game. Afterward, fans were invited onto the outfield to play catch, a Sunday afternoon tradition at this great historic ballpark in Spokane.
