Portland Beavers


Current Season
Team History
All-Time Leaders    Batting    Pitching
League Championship Titles: 1922, 1925, 1930
Ballpark: Vaughn Street Park



Vaughn Street Park   Opened: 1901   Capacity: 16,500
Vaughn Street and 25th Street North, Portland, Oregon






Factors
AVG overall 1.007
LHB .995, RHB 1.013
Doubles 1.084
Triples .568
HR overall 1.328
LHB 1.424, RHB 1.276

Distances/wall heights
Left Field line 340 ft./17 ft.
Left Field 374 ft./17 ft.
Left-Center Field 411 ft./9 ft.
Center Field 422 ft./9 ft.
Right-Center Field 386 ft./9 ft.
Right Field 350 ft./6 ft.
Right Field line 325 ft./6 ft.

In the Redux

In addition to their three Pacific Coast League championships, the Beavers own a World Championship, winning the World Series in 1930. The Beavers also made postseason appearances in 1921 and 1923.

Real-life history

The Portland franchise that became charter members of the PCL in 1903 traced its history back two years earlier, when the Portland Webfoots competed in the Pacific Northwest League. Upon entering the PCL they were known as the Browns for a few seasons, and then the Giants. In 1905 they were purchased by Walt McCredie, a professional baseball player, and his uncle, Judge William Wallace McCredie, a former Congressman. The McCredies allowed fans to rename the team in a newspaper contest in 1906, and the winner was the Beavers. The club itself was also a winner; they took their first PCL pennant that year.





The 1945 PCL Champions, whose P.R. department wasn’t afraid to admit it’s better to be lucky than good.

They also won pennants in 1910 and 1911, and celebrated by doubling Vaughn Street Park’s seating capacity to 12,000 in 1912. They finished fourth that year, but regained the championship in 1913 and 1914.

Largely as the result of travel restrictions during World War I, the McCredies dropped out of the PCL in 1918 to form a team in the Class-B Pacific Coast International League, which was a Pacific Northwest-based circuit. Their team was known as the Portland Buckaroos that season. Most of the players from the 1917 Beavers stayed in the PCL as members of the expansion Sacramento Senators in 1918.






Fans who flocked to the yard on Opening Day 1915 were rewarded with a pin portraying a uniformed beaver using a catcher’s mitt to catch a basketball.

Portland was back in the PCL for the 1919 season, once again owned by the McCredies and once again called the Beavers. They were an expansion club this time, and played like one for the next several years. They were the Philadelphia Athletics’ de facto farm club for a few seasons before the A’s made it official by purchasing the club in 1924. This arrangement lasted through the 1931 season.

They tried out the name Ducks in 1929, and were also referred to as the Rosebuds, but the Beaver name was enduring. In 1932, Portland won its first PCL pennant since 1914, but it was back to the second division shortly after that. They captured another crown in 1945 but the following year they again returned to the bottom half of the league for several seasons. The Beavers moved to 25,000-seat Multnomah Stadium in 1956.

The club remained in Portland through the 1972 season, after which they moved to Spokane, followed by a move to Las Vegas a few years later. The franchise currently competes in the PCL as the Las Vegas 51s. There have been several minor league teams in Portland since the original Beavers left, some in the PCL, some not; some called the Beavers, some using other names. The current Portland-area team is the Hillsboro Hops of the Class-A Northwest League (Hillsboro is a Portland suburb).

Portland Beavers Uniform History







1921 Home

1922 Home

1923-1924 Home

1925 Home

1926 Home







1921 Away

1922-1924 Away

1925 Away

1926 Away








1927 Home

1928-1930 Home














1927 Away

1928 Away

1929-1930 Away












1931-1933 Home

1934-1936 Home

1937-1940 Home








1931 Away

1932 Away

1933 Away

1934-1936 Away

1937-1940 Away









1941-1943 Home

1944-1946 Home

1947-1948 Home

1949-1951 Home

1952 Home







1941-1943 Away

1944-1946 Away

1947-1948 Away

1949-1952 Away













1953-1955 Home




















1953-1955 Away