Take Me Out to the Ball Game

 Baseball has been a part of Tom's life since he was a kid.  He is a proud Yankees fan. In 2013 when the Hops came to Hillsboro, it was a time for celebration. A local team was playing games only a fifteen minute drive from our house!

The Yakima Bears moved to Hillsboro after their 2012 season and became our Hillsboro Hops. The Bears decided to relocate because of the lack of progress on a new stadium that would meet league standards and a declining local economy back in Yakama. 

The Hops are a short-season Class A Northwest League team, that is a farm team of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  They play at Ron Tonkin Field, a new stadium that was built especially for the Hops in 2013. The Hops replaced the Triple-A Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League, who relocated to Tuscon at the end of the 2010 season.   

* The Beavers were a minor league team that was established in 1903. After many incarnations, they left Portland in 2010 and after Tuscon went on to  Texas to become the  El Paso Chihuahuas.    

 Portland went without a minor league team in 2011 and 2012.  Poor Tom. The Hops opened in the 2013 season at Salem on June 14 followed by the home opener of June 17. Their first win came at that home game playing Eugene. They set a franchise record for attendance for the 2014 season and won their division and league championship.

Tom wearing a replica Beavers Jersey, holding the biggest foot-
long hot dog I have ever seen! It was truly close to an inch and a half wide!
We both shared it for seven innings, and threw the rest away.

The teams name is a reference to hops,  the plant used in beer brewing.  Oregon is the second-largest hop producing state by volume. School children in Hillsboro got to vote on a name for the team mascot (a hop cone wearing a blue baseball cap). He was named Barley, which is another plant used in beer brewing. Barley makes the rounds at every game visiting and posing with fans.

Watching that foul ball.

That McDonald's arch is an inflated one.

Lots of teams attend the games, waiting for foul
balls and horsing around. Fun to watch too.

Of course, as the food obsessed writer of this piece, I must touch on the concessions.

Conferring

Leaving the stadium at games end

Baseball, the All American Pastime   :-)          

Since the Hot Dog Incident we have sampled (and hope to sample) some of the other offerings which are many and not too high priced, including but not limited to:
*Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwiches
*Red Tomato Mexican food
*Japanese Grill and Filipino food
*Chicken and Waffle sandwiches
*Slider Cart- meatloaf sliders topped with mashed potatoes and gravy, Salmon Cake sliders, and mini Cuban Sandwiches and...
*Dessert Cart- Strawberry Shortcake(from local farm), Bavarian Pretzel with Maple Sugar and Cream Cheese Icing, Dessert Nachos etc.
They were also making some kind of Sub Zero Ice Cream where they put cream and fruit into a container and froze it for a minute or two with freezing guns and constant mixing. I will have to explore that further.