Category: Pacific Coast League

1953 Tulsa Oilers baseball program from the Texas League

Tulsa Oilers (1919-1976)

The Oilers were Tulsa, Oklahoma’s minor league baseball team for most of the 20th century. The team competed in various league at different levels of competition. But at their competitive zenith, the Oilers spent eleven seasons from 1966 until 1976 serving as the top farm club of the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals. During this era, the Oilers won three Class AAA playoff championships and supplied a steady stream of future Major League stars.

Read More »
1959 Portland Beavers Baseball Program from the Pacific Coast League

Portland Beavers (1906-1972)

Today we look at the original Portland Beavers baseball team of 1906-1972, the first and most enduring of three clubs to play under the Bevos name in the storied Pacific Coast League. When the team finally moved away to Spokane, Washington in early 1973, Portland became the last of the original six PCL cities of 1903 to lose its minor league baseball franchise. The second version of the Beavers would return to Portland’s Civic Stadium in 1978.

Read More »
Illustration of Jose Canseco on the cover of a 1989 Tacoma Tigers baseball program from the Pacific Coast League

Tacoma Tigers (1980-1994)

The Tigers were Tacoma, Washington’s Pacific Coast League entry for fifteen summers between 1980 and 1994. Contrary to what a modern day reader might deduce from the name, the Tacoma Tigers never served as a farm team of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers. Rather, after cycling through four different identity changes during the 1970’s the team’s local owners decided in 1980 to turn back the clock and honor the Tacoma minor league clubs that traditionally played under the Tigers name in various leagues between 1901 and 1951.

Read More »
Salt Lake Padres Pacific Coast League

Salt Lake Padres

For one season, during the summer of 1970, Salt Lake City, Utah hosted the top farm club of the San Diego Padres in the Pacific Coast League. The Salt Lake Padres suffered a wretched season on the field and the short-lived partnership remains sufficiently obscure that both Baseball-Reference.com and some editions of The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball published by Baseball America mis-identify the 1970 Salt Lake teams as the “Bees”, the historic name used by various Salt Lake City clubs dating back to the early 19th century.

Read More »
Portland Beavers 2001-2010

Portland Beavers (2001-2010)

The Pacific Coast League’s Portland Beavers of 2001 to 2010 were the last of four editions of the Beavers to compete in the historic Class AAA circuit dating back to the early 20th century. The latter day Beavers arrived in 2001 as part of an ambitious $38.5 million overhaul of Portland’s aging Civic Stadium. This edition of the Beavers served as the top farm club of the San Diego Padres for all ten seasons of their existence. The team was displaced in 2011 when PGE Park was converted into a soccer-specific stadium for the purpose of bringing Major League Soccer to Portland. The Pacific Coast League baseball franchise moved away to Tucson, Arizona in 2011 as a result.

Read More »