If you have ever enjoyed a summer night at the ballpark, this is for you.
If you’ve shelled out for a bag of peanuts or spilled suds all over yourself trying to snag a foul ball, you’re gonna want to pay attention.
The Hops could soon be forced out of Hillsboro.
It’s true and I can Barley stand the thought.
The Hops need to build a new stadium and they are $20 million short of paying for it.
“The reality is that if they can’t get this facility funded and built,” said Jim Etzel, the chief executive of Sport Oregon, “we’re probably losing the Hops.
“Not probably. We will. There’s no exceptions.”
Maybe this seems like a hollow threat to inspire action from civic leaders. Maybe you are skeptical that the Hops would really ever leave.
But Major League Baseball’s new facilities standards have made this a non-negotiable situation and one that is growing increasingly dire.
The Hops were left scrambling this summer when the Oregon Legislature, in a session limited by a walkout, did not grant the Hops’ request for funding in its appropriations package.
“We thought we were in pretty good shape based on a lot of the feedback we were getting from legislators,” Hops President K.L. Wombacher said, “and then come to find out the appropriation was zero.”
Talk about your curveballs.
“We felt a little led on by the state,” Wombacher added.
When lawmakers returned to the legislature after the work stoppage, bills got combined, projects were scrapped and many things, like the Hops’ needs, fell down the to-do list.
“No one’s going to argue that our state has massive needs in our community,” Etzel said. “Especially at the social services level. But if we lose the Hops, then we are losing contributors to that economic engine that helps pay for those types of services in our communities.”
Did lawmakers understand that?
“I think there was a perception,” Wombacher said, “that this was a want, not a need.”
Here’s the reality: Sitting in a conference room at Ron Tonkin Field on Tuesday, Wombacher was counting down to a Sept. 30 deadline imposed by the MLB to essentially say whether the new ballpark is happening or not.
“As we stand today,” Wombacher said, “we’re at risk of telling major league baseball in 25 days that we don’t have a path forward.”
And then?
MLB will have the authority to force the sale of the Hops to owners in a place where civic leaders can ensure a new ballpark will be built.
“In theory,” Wombacher said, “it could be instant. We don’t exactly know how forceful MLB is going to be, but we also don’t want to find out.”
When the Hops take the field this weekend against Spokane, it may not just be their last homestand of the season.
It could be their last stand in Hillsboro, period.
Maybe the team jumps across the river to Vancouver into a state whose government has shown strong support for its minor league teams. In April, Washington lawmakers appropriated $19.2 million to fund projects for minor league parks in Tacoma, Everett, Spokane and Pasco.
Maybe it’s completely out of the Portland metro area and the club takes its life-sized hop mascot, Barley, to a whole new market.
“It’s important for people to just know the consequence if this doesn’t happen,” Wombacher said. “This is real.”
It has been a multi-year struggle for Wombacher and the Hops since MLB condensed its minor league system and the Hops were elevated from the short-season ranks to High-A ball.
Earlier this year, they announced plans to build a new stadium at the city-owned Gordon Faber Recreation Complex.
Many people, understandably, wondered: Do the Hops really need a new stadium? What’s wrong with the one that was built 10 years ago?
The answer, it turned out, was quite a lot.
It doesn’t have a dedicated visitors’ clubhouse or weight room. Or a women’s locker room.
Those were among the new requirements imposed by Major League Baseball when it consolidated its minor league system in 2020.
Facility standards were made uniform across the board. From Triple-A on down.
Gone are the days of Bull Durham clubhouses and cold showers. This is pro sports, after all.
The Hops were limited in what they could do to get up to speed.
Because Tonkin Field is connected to Hillsboro Stadium, the home of Portland State’s football team, there was no room down the third base line. And the first base side presented significant and expensive infrastructure issues.
Turned out, renovating was not only going to cost the Hops $160 million, but was going to basically max out their ability to expand if those requirements ever changed again.
Building a new ballpark was cheaper — $120 million — and gave them more flexibility in the future.
The City of Hillsboro allocated $18 million in its transient lodging tax and the team’s owners, Mike and Laura McMurray committed to paying $82 million toward the project through a private bond that would be paid back through ballpark revenues. That left the $20 million the club looked to the legislature to fill.
“They’ve made an unprecedented commitment,” Etzel said. “No one in minor league baseball, an owner, has ever committed that kind of money. Not even half of that.”
Plans were made to relocate the softball fields at the complex that would be displaced by a new baseball stadium to elsewhere on the complex. Tonkin Field is set to become a softball-specific stadium, as well.
But it may all be for naught if the Hops can’t figure out how to bridge their financing shortfall.
“We’re so close with the project that I just can’t imagine this community losing a team over $20 million,” Wombacher said.
In Eugene, it’s a similar story where the Emeralds are also at risk of leaving town. On Aug. 29 the Lane County Commission voted 4-1 to pause for six months on plans to build a new stadium at the county fairgrounds, placing the Emeralds — who have played recent seasons as tenants at PK Park on the University of Oregon campus — in limbo.
That project has received $7.5 million from the state in a previous legislative session, as well as $35 million from the county. With some federal funding and about $13 million offered up by their out-of-state ownership group, the Emeralds have secured $57.5 million of the anticipated $90.4 million to complete their project, said Allan Benavides, the team’s general manager.
The county has asked the city of Eugene for $15 million toward the project, and Benavides said the club would sell naming rights to make up the remaining difference. But for now all eyes are on the city.
“If we don’t get that I don’t see how we get the project done,” Benavides said. “If we get that the light gets a little brighter. Because the light’s pretty dim right now.”
He added: “It’s hard for me to fathom that after 70 years of being in this community that it could be gone in a year or two.”
So if you’re keeping score at home, and if you’re a true baseball fan you probably are, that’s Oregon’s two remaining minor league baseball teams that find themselves at risk of being driven out of the state.
“Here we are trying to get Major League Baseball to Portland but we can’t figure out how to get two minor league teams to stay here?” Benavides said. “I don’t think that sends a great message.”
So here’s what’s next:
Wombacher is working with officials in Washington County to find other sources of funding. He has been in touch with legislators, including Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, to raise awareness among lawmakers.
“I know the positive ripple effect of having the hops here in Hillsboro,” Sollman said, “and what it means for the county and what it means for the state because of philanthropic investments.”
Sollman plans to meet with the Legislative Fiscal Office and colleagues in Salem to try to secure support for funding in next year’s short session.
Being able to point to that support by Sept. 30 would help Wombacher’s case that the project is moving in the right direction. But it’s far from a guarantee.
“At the end of the day, MLB doesn’t want this team to leave,” he said. “They don’t want our ownership to have to sell, they don’t want to have to force that on us.
“They want to see a viable project and want the team to stay here.”
Do you?
If so, this weekend might be a good time to head out to the ballpark. Friday night there will be fireworks. Saturday is Corbin Carroll bobblehead night, honoring the former Hops star and current Arizona Diamondbacks centerfielder.
Cheer for the Hops. Cheer loudly.
But don’t just root for them to win. Root for them to stay. And don’t stop there.
“It’s not just me going and talking to legislators,” Sollman said. “I need season ticket holders, I need community partners, I need vendors. I need all of those folks to reach out to their legislators and say, ‘I am a constituent. And I need you to pay attention to this.’”
Otherwise, we’ll all be out.
-- Bill Oram | boram@oregonian.com | Twitter: @billoram