The Front Row with MARK NELKE Aug. 21, 2011
Highway 20, an east/west roadway through the center of Oregon, is a path I had not traveled in some 40 years.
It is not to be confused with a scenic byway, but it is the most direct route from the middle of western Oregon to the Boise area.
One memory of that roadway has remained through the years.
In 1970, when our family was moving from Salem, Ore., to Salt Lake City, we were driving on that highway on Day 1 of the two-day trip. Sitting in the back seat with my brother, sister and cat on this June day, I wasn't feeling well.
"Dad, I think I'm going to be sick," I said.
"OK, just let me know when."
"Uh, now, Dad."
Moments later, we were stopped by the side of the road. My brother woke up from his nap, looked out the window into a field where some animals were grazing.
"Why did we stop to look at a cow?" he wondered.
Last week, some 40 years later, starting the day in Lincoln City, Ore., and finishing in Meridian, the drive across Oregon was long, but uneventful.
Some other observations from nine days on the road, through Oregon and Idaho:
In a quest to eventually see a baseball game in each of the eight parks in the Northwest League, our first stop was PK Park in Eugene, Ore., home of the Eugene Emeralds. Located next to Autzen Stadium, it was actually built for the Oregon Ducks, who revived their baseball program a few years back. But the Emeralds moved there as well, leaving behind ancient but historic Civic Stadium - a move which remains a sore spot with some fans.
Anyway, the promotion this night was "Animal House Night," celebrating the famous college frat house movie that was filmed in Eugene.
Toilet paper was strewn throughout the ballpark, thehelp wore togas, and snippets from the movie were played over the sound system as well as on the big screen in center field — the food fight, John Belushi pretending he was a zit, Belushi smashing the guitar, the Deltas being told they were going on double-secret probation, etc.
The scoreboard even listed the game as the Omegas vs. the Deltas, instead of the Tri-City Dust Devils vs. the Emeralds. For the record, the Deltas — er, the Ems — won 2-0.
Some 36 years after a car crash claimed his life far too soon, the memory of distance runner Steve Prefontaine is alive and well in Eugene.
In the restaurant we ate at near the campus, photos and posters of Pre adorned the walls, and a Google map showing the direction to “Pre’s Rock” was taped to the wall near the cash register. In the U of O bookstore, there is a little section of Pre T-shirts and other collectibles.
Happily, there were no Casey Anthony sightings. Ditto for Brett Favre.
At the Oregon coast, we saw a couple people on jet skis and a couple on surfboards with paddles (dubbed stand up paddle surfing, or SUP), attacking the waves. In more than 40 years of going to the coast, we had never seen anything like that in the water.
Steve Williams has a website? A caddie? I heard him dissing Tiger Woods after Tiger fired him, and he won a tournament carrying the bag of Adam Scott, who apparently couldn’t win anything big until Stevie came along.
Anyway, even if he was sore over being fired, working for Tiger was pretty good for Williams’ bank account over the years. And besides, maybe Tiger was doing him a favor by cutting him loose. Tiger doesn’t play much and, these days, has a hard time making cuts when he does.
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl?
We were tooling around Boise listening to a classic rock station when they delivered the “breaking news” of Gene Bleymaier being fired after 30 years as Boise State athletic director.
BSU made it sound like it was looking for someone who was a better fundraiser.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Bleymaier was fired while the Broncos were waiting to hear from the NCAA on the infractions — including the dreaded “lack of institutional control” charge — that Boise State was leveled with earlier this year.
Perhaps.
Eugene bills itself as a running town, but we found a nice place to walk at Alton Baker Park, across the river from the U of O campus. Ditto for the Greenbelt in Boise. The trees along the Greenbelt made for a nice shade on those 90-degree afternoons. Walking past Warm Springs Golf Course, we noticed a couple of deer resting under the trees behind one of the greens, watching the golfers putt out.
The Greenbelt path is more narrow than the Centennial Trail in most spots, but the other users are for the most part friendly on both trails. It seems like on the Centennial Trail, most of the users are cyclists. On the Greenbelt, there were a few more walkers and joggers.
We went to a Boise Hawks game at Memorial Stadium, and the talk while we were there was the parent Chicago Cubs suggesting the Hawks either improve Memorial Stadium, or build a new stadium downtown, if they wanted to continue to develop future Cubs.
(Considering the Cubs’ futility at the major league level, perhaps the organization has more important things to attend to than improving the digs of its short-season Class A franchise.)
I have now been to five of the eight parks in the Northwest League, and Memorial Stadium is the worst of the five — trailing, in no particular order, the parks in Spokane, Vancouver, Salem-Keizer and Eugene.
The parking lot is dirt, the stands are old, the press box is small, the clubhouse for the players is small, and on and on.
The sentiment among the Hawks fans is they would like to see the current facility, located just outside Boise in Garden City, improved.
In any event, we did enjoy the Potato Races between innings at the Boise Hawks game, between the Fry, the Spud and the Gem. I don’t remember who won, but it was a nice regional touch.
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com.