Terry Simons

The Children of Vaughn: the Story of Professional Baseball in Portland, Oregon (1901-2010) Terry Simons First edition

This history of the Portland Beavers reads like a nightmare of economic failure in a field of dreams. The roots of baseball in Portland, Oregon go deep. In telling the story of baseball as it grew up before turning fallow in Portland, Terry Simons finds a balance between fact and fiction that is a sometimes humorous history, and a telling-truth about the way things once were, or could have been. Read this book, absorb its message and remember--the next time you go to bat against major-league pitching, you may strike out. A short (128 pp), concise history of professional baseball in Portland, Oregon, it tells the story of how Portland almost but not quite became a Major League Baseball town. When the game's demographics, politics and economics shifted Portland was left out in the cold. Portland never made it to the big leagues, but the story of how it almost got there is an entertaining and revealing portrait of the game as it evolved before television and the changing tides.--Buddy Dooley