Portland State’s baseball program is in its second year as a club sport. The baseball club is on its way toward joining a conference with teams like Oregon and Oregon State and hopefully playing in the world series of club baseball in the near future. The club is doing this despite a lack of finances. With a bright future seemingly in store for baseball at Portland State, President Michael Abrams hopes for even more.
“I envisioned it as being a Portland State collegiate team,” Abrams said. “My goal was when I graduated it [would be] a school sponsored sports team. Unfortunately, because of Title IX, we can’t do that.”
In order for baseball to become an officially sanctioned sport at Portland State, a new equally sized women’s athletic program would have to be added or a men’s program would have to be eliminated.
“Honestly, when I heard about that, I thought about starting a women’s sport just so it could be more possible.” Abrams said.
There isn’t a clear avenue to turning baseball into a school sport, so for now, the club management’s focus is on what the Vikings can do. Portland State is in the middle of its first season as a club, and Abrams is still working hard to get the club where he wants it to be.
“When I first came to Portland State my freshman year, first term, my worry was not being able to play baseball,” Abrams said. “The first few days here I figured out what it would take to start a baseball program. I literally started on the paperwork within the first few weeks. Man, I am still doing paper work.”
The work that Abrams and the club’s vice president Colton Sharman have put in have led to Portland State’s baseball club punching above its weight, event-wise. The baseball program has been competing against high-ranked colleges, including the number-16 seed in the nation, Western Washington University. The team has yet to win a game, but that hasn’t dampened their spirits.
The Northern Pacific West Conference is where Portland State hopes to be next season. Abrams and Sharman hope numbers will grow enough before that point so the Vikings can compete in the five-team conference. The winner of the conference every year goes to the World Series of Club Baseball in Georgia.
“We plan on definitely keeping this program going,” Sharman said. “We’ve had a lot of interest, and next year the school will support us a lot more because we’re joining a conference. This year we’ve competed a lot more than I thought we would, even though we haven’t won a game. We’re definitely trying to get our name out there. That’s the biggest thing right now.”
Students interested in seeing the baseball club will get their chance soon at the club’s only home series of the season. The baseball club will be taking on Seattle University at Lind Park and Walker Stadium the weekend of April 14. Besides that, the program has a Facebook page, which will lead you to their website and Portland State page.
The Vikings practice on the Stott Field on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Spring term may be a little more difficult for them to get practice times, which may be reduced to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Despite the setbacks and trial and error of managing a club sport at Portland State, Abrams continues to push through.
“It’s tough,” Abrams said. “The Northwest has always been pretty good for baseball, and I figured that if we get established well enough and have enough fans coming out, this could still happen.”
The Portland State Vikings baseball club will take on Seattle University on April 14. After that, the Vikings have one more scheduled game this spring, against Corban University on April 25 at the Warrior Field in Salem.