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The Dalle
s Chronicle
February 2020
Weekend
$1.00
February 15-16, 2020
The Dalles, Oregon
www.thedalleschronicle.com
Vol. 229, Issue 14
Brown Unconventional ‘underdogs’ left their mark
Portland Mavericks
resigns The
had great fan support,
record
from winning
■
council
Builders Choice
for Window
s and Doors
in the Columb
ia River Gorge
Andersen
- Kolbe
- LaCantina
- Prime - Simpso
n
By Gabriel Bravo
The Dalles Chronicle
City Councilor Russ Brown
resigned his position on The Dalles
City Council Feb. 6, citing person-
al reasons, and the council will
appoint a predecessor to serve the
remaining three years of his term
by majority vote.
The council agreed unanimous-
ly to follow past procedure in ap-
pointing a new councilor to fill the
vacancy during its Feb. 10 regular
meeting, and the city will receive
applications through March 4.
Brown served in position 3 of
the council, which represents the
east side of the city.
In addition to living on the east
side, applicants must have lived
within the city limits for the past
year,lived on the east side for 90
days prior to appointment, and be
registered to vote. The east/west
divide is Union Street, and a map
is available on the city’s website.
Applications can be requested
via email to the City Clerk (igross-
man@ci.the-dalles.or.us.)
Completed applications can be
emailed to the City Clerk or deliv-
ered to the office of the City Clerk,
313 Court Street, The Dalles.
The deadline for submitting
applications is 4 p.m. Wednesday,
March 4.
—Mark Gibson
Local
breweries
join festivities
Breweries from around the
state will celebrate Oregon’s craft
beer scene with the 12th annual
Zwickelmania Saturday, Feb. 22,
from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Breweries
will be opening their doors to the
public with tours, tastings, meet-
the-brewer sessions, and free
samples.
In The Dalles, Freebridge
Brewing (710 E. Second St.) will
offer a family-friendly event with
food specials, free samples, guid-
ed brewery tours, new releases
and an opportunity to meet the
brewer. Sedition Brewing (208
Laughlin St.) will offer a dog- and
family-friendly atmosphere, also
with free samples, guided brewery
tours and a chance to meet the
brewer.
Other Gorge particpants
include:
Double Mountain Brewery and
Cidery (8 4th St., Hood River);
Ferment Brewing Company (403
Portway Ave., Hood River); pFriem
Family Brewers (707 Portway Ave.,
Ste 101, Hood River); and Thunder
Island Brewing Co. (515 NW
Portage Road, Cascade Locks.)
Zwickelmania is named in hon-
or of the zwickel, a screw valve that
mounts on the outside of fermen-
tation or conditioning tanks and
allows brewers to sample the beer
inside for quality assurance and
control. Zwickelmania will serve as
the highlight of Oregon Craft Beer
Month, a month-long celebration
that includes tap takeovers, beer
festivals, panel discussions and
more. Portland Metropolitan area
breweries celebrate the event on
Feb. 15, while breweries through-
out the rest of the state take part on
Feb. 22.
Thirty of the state’s brewer-
ies have also collaborated on a
limited run Zwickelmania beer
that will be canned and sold at
See GORGE, page A3
INSIDE
When baseball is mentioned,
teams and players come to mind,
like the Washington Nationals,
Stephen Strasburg and Ken Griffey
Jr.
When America’s pastime is
brought up around area old-tim-
ers, the Portland Mavericks come
to mind.
Only in existence from 1973-
1977, the Mavericks played in
the Northwest League, a Class
A short-season minor league. In
those five years, the Mavs earned
fan loyalty, beat favored oppo-
nents and provided a second
chance to hopeful baseball
dreamers from across the country.
In 2014, the team was memorial-
ized in the film documentary “The
Battered Bastards of Baseball.”
Michael Guischer, from The
Dalles, was one of them.
With hopes of pitching in the
major leagues, Guischer tore carti-
lage in his knee in his final year at
Portland State University in 1972.
“I thought that it was going to
be the end of it,” Guischer said. “I
didn’t want to quit playing and I
knew there was a little chance of
climbing out of there and getting
somewhere. But I was still young,
loved the game and I’ve been play-
ing since I was 8 years old. I just
wasn’t ready to call it good.”
Guischer returned to baseball
in 1974 for one season with the
Eugene Emeralds, then transferred
to the Mavericks and pitched in
1975 and 1976.
“Well, I had probably the best
year in Eugene. I was seven and
one and I got released along with
pretty much the whole ball club,”
Guischer said. “College kids came
from all over the country to (the
Mavericks’) weeklong inter-squad
game. Guys were coming in and
out from eight o’clock in the
morning to eight o’clock at night.
So, everybody got a chance to play
and got a chance to see everybody.
I got something out of that camp
as one of the two pitchers.”
This unconventional way of
recruiting attracted baseball
players who didn’t fall in the, then,
traditional baseball player catego-
ry. Guys weren’t in the best shape
and smoked filter-less cigarettes
in the locker rooms. But despite
their misleading appearance, the
Mavericks played well.
In their inaugural year, the Mavs
had a 45-35 record, 50-34 in 1974,
42-35 in 1975, 40-32 in 1976 and 44-
22 in their last season.
Maverick fans appreciated the
underdog aspect of the team. With
no affiliation with a major league
club, the Mavs beat other clubs who
were affiliated with the Philadelphia
Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers and
the San Diego Padres.
“We were pretty seasoned ball
players,” Guischer said. “There
was rumors that (other clubs) sent
people down from their higher ball
clubs to beat us.”
Game attendance for those
five years averaged 2,724. During
Guischer’s two years with the team,
total season attendance exceeded
100,000. In its final season, it is esti-
mated that a total of 125,300 people
attended Maverick home games.
“When I was going to school at
Portland State, we’d go to a lot of
the triple-A games; the Portland
Beavers were a triple-A club,”
Guischer said. “There’d only be
a couple hundred people in that
ballpark watching them. For some
reason, when the Mavericks started
playing, they were very supportive
of the ball club. It was a fun place to
play. Great fan support.”
Now that it’s been over 40 years
since he played for the Mavericks,
Guischer has been married for
27 years and has two daughters,
who also picked up the sport and
position. Chelan and Ann-Marie
Guischer were raised playing the
sport and were babysat by Sarah
Clark, former star pitcher for The
Dalles High School.
“During the summers, (Clark)
babysat the kids, so she had an in-
fluence on them too and she helped
coach pitching lessons,” Guischer
said. “They ended up loving the
game and played as long as they
could.”
Both daughters continued the
baseball tradition and played in
college. Chelan attended Linfield
College in McMinnville, Ore., while
Ann-Marie went to the Oregon
Institute of Technology in Klamath
Falls.
Guischer once helped in TDHS’s
soft ball team, but couldn’t contin-
ue due to work scheduling conflicts.
But with the kids out of the nest and
retirement in the horizon, Guischer
said he’d like to, again, give back to
the sport.
“If I ever do retire, I would proba-
bly give it a go again,” Guischer said.
“I really enjoyed softball. I wouldn’t
mind doing the assistant coach
managing end of it. I’d work with
the pitchers more than anything.”
Michael Guischer of
The Dalles is pictured
on the pitcher’s mound
during his years with the
Portland Mavericks.
Contributed photo
The battered bastards of baseball
The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a 2014 documentary film
about the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball team
in Portland. They played five seasons in the Class A-Short Season
Northwest League, from 1973 through 1977. Owned by actor Bing
Russell, the Mavericks were an independent team, without the affil-
iation of a parent team in the major leagues. The title is from a line
from Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four: “Us battered bastards of baseball
are the biggest customers of the U.S. Post Office, forwarding-address
department.”
The film was directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, grand-
sons of Russell, and features Russell’s son Kurt Russell, who played for
the Mavericks and worked as a vice president. The film premiered to
a standing ovation at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in 2014. Netflix,
initially one of several interested buyers, acquired the rights to the film
and premiered it as an original documentary in 2014.
—Wikipedia
Legislature week 2:
What’s still moving, what’s been spiked
Session has
passed first
deadline for bills
to move forward.
Jake Thomas
■ By Oregon
Capital Bureau
SALEM —The first major dead-
line of this year’s legislative session
hit the Capitol on Friday, Feb. 7.
Legislation that hadn’t been
scheduled committee vote by that
day was consigned to the political
dustbin.
These proposals may not have
made headlines, but they could
have affected Oregonians none-
theless. Lawmakers sometimes
introduce legislation that is un-
likely to pass just to get the matter
attention, or to win the startup of a
policy workgroup with the aim of it
passing it in a future session.
Although the first deadline
Oregon news
Opinion
History
means most bills won’t advance,
there is a chance for them to be
revived. The deadlines don’t apply
to the Joint Committee on Ways and
Means, as well as other committees
that deal with rules or finance. So
bills sent to those committees might
have more time.
For the moment, here’s a
sampling of what seems dead and
what’s still moving forward.
Bill number: Senate Bill 1538
The issue: It’s illegal to carry a
firearm into a public building. But
a court case made an exception for
people who have a concealed carry
license.
What it does: Allows local gov-
ernments to ban people with con-
cealed carry permits from bringing
guns into public buildings.
Status: Still moving. The Senate
Judiciary Committee sent the bill to
the Rules Committee.
The issue: Firearms left unlocked
by their owners have been blamed
for suicides and as well as other
A2
A4
A5
shootings.
What it does: Requires gun own-
ers to lock up their firearms when
not in use or face penalties as well
as liability if their guns fall in the
wrong hands.
What it does: Makes it illegal to
hold coyote-killing competitions.
Bill number: House Bill 4075
Status: Still moving. The House
Natural Resources Committee has
scheduled a work session.
The issue: Vaping devices that
deliver flavored nicotine have been
criticized for being used by tobacco
companies to hook kids.
What it does: Bans stores from
selling flavored vaping products.
Bill number: House Bill 4005
Status: Still moving. The House
Judiciary Committee held a work
session on the bill.
The issue: Oregon currently has
no effective limits on the amount of
money that can be donated to polit-
Bill number: Senate Bill 1559
ical campaigns. A court case and a
Status: Spiked. Stuck in Senate
constitutional amendment that will
go before voters could allow limits. Health Committee.
The issue: Oregon has expe-
What it does: Would establish
a task force to propose campaign
rienced increasingly destructive
finance regulations.
wildfires.
What it does: Attempts to
Bill number: House Bill 4124
address wildfires with updates to
Status: Still moving. The House
Oregon’s building codes, land-use
Rules Committee has scheduled a
planning, mapping of high-risk ar-
work session.
eas, treatment of forest debris, mit-
The issue: Contests to kill coyotes igation of smoke on public health
has drawn criticism that such
events are inhumane.
See LEGISLATURE, page A3
Obituaries
Comics
Sports
A7
A8
A10-11