The story of the Seattle Pilots is one of the most fascinating in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB). It began years before the team’s 1969 debut, and is tale filled with hope, excitement, money (and lack thereof), franchise relocations, and political influence.
The St. Louis Browns baseball team was established when the Milwaukee Brewers of the American League moved to Missouri in 1902. The club moved east in 1953 and became the Baltimore Orioles.
The Portland Rockies were a popular Class A farm club of the National League’s Colorado Rockies for six summers between 1995 and 2000. The Rockies shattered Northwest League single-game and full-season attendance records during the mid-1990’s and won the league championship during the 1997 season. The Class-A Rockies franchise was ultimately displaced by the return of triple-A baseball to the Rose City in 2001 and the ball club moved to Pasco, Washington where it continues to play today as the Tri-City Dust Devils of the Northwest League.
The New Westminster Frasers were a British Columbia-based entry in the Class A Northwest League that lasted only one season during the summer of 1974. The team had no Major League affiliation. After a dreadfully attended 1974 campaign, the franchise relocated to Boise, Idaho ahead of the 1975 season.
The Bend Timber Hawks were, ever so briefly, a Central Oregon-based farm club of the Oakland Athletics. The franchise joined the Northwest League in 1978 as part of an expansion that saw the short-season Class A circuit expand from six to eight teams that summer. Following the 1978 season, owner Doug Emmans moved the franchise to Medford, Oregon but the Northwest League swiftly put a new team into Bend, the Central Oregon Phillies, for the 1979 campaign.
*Like our new look? Next up: site speed. You can help with a tip for our Speed Fund today. Thank you!
