Tombstone
Born: February 1979 – The Bend Timber Hawks relocate to Medford, OR
Re-Branded: 1996 (Southern Oregon Timberjacks)
First Game: June 19, 1979 (L 15-5 vs. Bend Phillies)
Last Game: September 3, 1995 (W 12-3 vs. Eugene Emeralds)
Northwest League Champions: 1981 & 1983
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Owner: Fred Herrmann
Major League Affiliation: Oakland Athletics
Attendance
Background
The small city of Medford, Oregon and its tiny Miles Field hosted a low-level farm team of the Oakland Athletics for 21 seasons from 1979 to 1999. The club won the championships of the Class A Northwest League twice, in 1981 and 1983, while it was known as the Medford A’s.
Prior to the 1988 season the team adopted a slight name change to the Southern Oregon A’s and played under this moniker through the 1995 season.
Key Players
Future Oakland A’s stars Jason Giambi (Southern Oregon ’92) , Ben Grieve (Southern Oregon ’94) and Miguel Tejada (Southern Oregon ’95) played at Miles Field during the Southern Oregon A’s era between 1988 and 1995. Grieve was the 1998 American League Rookie-of-the-Year for Oakland. Tejada, a shortstop, won the American League MVP award for Oakland in 2002 and would eventually earn 6 All-Star selections during his 16-year Major League career.
In 1990, Oakland stockpiled four picks in the first round of the Major League Baseball amateur draft. The A’s selected a quartet of pitchers soon dubbed “The Four Aces”: Kirk Dressendorfer, Don Peters, Todd Van Poppel and Dave Zancanaro. During their 1990 rookie seasons, all four men pitched for Southern Oregon. But the 1990 draft proved to be a bust for Oakland. Only Van Poppel would ever pitch a full season in the Majors. Peters and Zancanaro never made it at all.
Name Change & Aftermath
In 1996 team owner Fred Herrmann re-branded the team, dubbing his club the Southern Oregon Timberjacks. The ‘Jacks stayed in Medford for four more summers before moving north of the border to Vancouver, British Columbia following the 1999 season.
The former Medford/Southern Oregon franchise remains active in the Northwest League today as the Vancouver Canadians.
Trivia
Team owner Fred Herrmann was a former minor league pitcher himself. Herrmann advanced as high as Triple-A during a four year stint as a St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants farmhand from 1961 to 1964.
Medford A’s Shop
Links
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2 Responses
In 1988, the fist year of the name change, the team played 6 games in nearby Klamath Falls (they may have done so as well the next year.) The idea was to get a larger fan base by playing in Kiger Stadium for some games. It didn’t work out apparently.
We are trying to find out who player # 3 was on the Medford, Oregon A’s team on September 4, 1994. We have found a roster but does not indicate the jersey #
We’d appreciate any help.
Kindly,
Bernadette