[ifspuds]

The Northwest League: A History

After the success of the Seattle Mariners in the late 90s and the 116-win team of 2001, interest in baseball in the northwestern US was at a level not seen since the heyday of the old Pacific Coast League. Portland, Oregon made a play to bring the Montreal Expos to town when Major League Baseball decided to relocate the team, but was ultimately unsuccessful as MLB granted the franchise to Washington D.C. in 2004, to begin play as the Washington Nationals in 2005. No one entirely expected what happened in the 2005 season, however. It started with the 2004 offseason's steroid use revelations: as the 2005 season opened, some fans stayed away from the ballpark as their method of protest over the scandal. But while recent historians have blamed the decline of Major League Baseball primarily on the performance-enhancing drug fiasco, one only has to look at the decline in attendance of all major sports in 2005 to see what the true cause of these declines was: economics.

Economic woes gripped the nation in 2005, and for a number of fans, disposable income for pursuits such as attendance at sporting events became severely curtailed. As a cost-saving measure, 6 major league teams were contracted (Colorado, Washington, Arizona and Milwaukee in the NL and Tampa Bay and Kansas City in the AL). At the same time, the major leagues cut loose many of their minor league teams. Suddenly there were a number of players without a roster spot, and no minor league team to go to even if they wanted to remain under contract to the organizations that had cut them loose without much regard for their personal well-being.

But while fans couldn't spend the money for major league tickets, they still loved the game of baseball. A number of former minor league teams had called the northwest (here defined loosely as Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana) home, and began discussions to start what would become the Northwest League in 2009. It started small, with 12 teams in Washington and Oregon. The original teams in the league were (in Washington) Longview, Olympia, Port Angeles, Spokane, Tacoma and Yakima and (in Oregon) Bend, Corvallis, Eugene, Medford, Portland and Roseburg. As news got around, however, communities in Idaho and Montana expressed interest in franchises. By the time the projected opening date of April 1st, 2009 approached, the league had grown to 24 teams, with a Western League and an Eastern League, each with two divisions. Teams in Idaho included Boise, Caldwell, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Sandpoint and Twin Falls. Teams in Montana included Billings, Bozeman, Glacier Park, Great Falls, Helena and Missoula. In order to cut down on travel time and costs, the Western League and Eastern League decided not to play interleague games, though they would meet for the Northwest League championship at the end of the season.

Some former major league players joined the ranks of the Northwest League, as well as a number of minor league players who suddenly found themselves without jobs. The setup of the league resembled major league baseball rather closely, though the money available to sign players was predictably far less than what MLB had to offer. Still, as April 2009 approached, the excitement over the opening of the new league was evident from north to south, east to west.