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.
The Bend Bandits were an independent (non-Major League affiliated) minor league baseball team that played in the Central Oregon during the late 1990’s. The Bandits were one of eight original clubs in the all-independent Western Baseball League formed in 1995. They replaced the Bend Rockies of the Northwest League, a Class A farm club of Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies, who left town at the end of the 1994 season. The Bandits went out of business after the 1998 season.
Bend, Oregon hosted a short-season Class A farm club of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1979 to 1986. In 1979 and 1980, Bend’s club was known as the Central Oregon Phillies. After Portland businessman Jack Cain purchased the club prior to the 1981 season, the team changed its name to the Bend Phillies. Top players to come out of Bend during the Phillies era included Julio Franco, Juan Samuel and Jason Grimsley.
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