Beaverton better than Lents, and may be only place for Beavers

If it were the film industry, you might call it “Romancing the Stone,” or something of that ilk.

If you consider “stone” or “rock” a suitable synonym for a baseball, it works.

And guess what? Beaverton has embraced them – or at the least the possibilities.

“We’re making a serious effort to make (a move to Beaverton) happen,” Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle said Thursday. “We have to keep the Beavers in the region. We’re working hard to see what we can do about that.”

Next Tuesday, the city of Beaverton and the Oregon Sports Authority will join forces to launch a campaign to create community support to bring the Beavers to Beaverton and build a stadium there.

“We’re delighted that the Sports Authority thinks it’s a great idea,” Doyle said.

The handwriting is evidently on the wall. It’s not going to happen in Portland. And time is of the essence in finding a site for the Beavers, who need a new place to play by the spring of 2011, when PGE Park becomes soccer-specific for the Major League Soccer-to-be Timbers.

“The core of our mission to make sure Portland and Oregon is a great sports destination,” said Drew Mahalic, the OSA’s chief executive officer. “That means preserving Triple-A baseball in this area. A move to Beaverton makes all the sense of the world. It’s a community that historically has embraced baseball. A large section of the Portland Beavers fan base is from Washington County. It seems that a team would flourish over there.

– Excerpts from the Portland Tribune, August 13, 2009