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BAKER VOLLEYBALL WINS LEAGUE FINALE, BRACES FOR PLAYOFFS: PG. A6
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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
October 23, 2021
IN THIS EDITION:
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber John
Bean of Baker City.
BRIEFING
Trunk-or-treat
event scheduled
for Oct. 30 at
Christian Church
A trunk-or-treat event is
planned for Saturday, Oct.
30 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30
p.m. in the parking lot at
the Baker City Christian
Church, 675 Highway 7.
There will be free, fun
activities for the whole
family. Chili, hot dogs and
s’mores will be available.
County seeks
volunteers to serve
on boards
Baker County is seek-
ing volunteers to serve
on any of the following:
Baker County Planning
Commission, Ambulance
Service Advisory Commit-
tee, Transportation/Traffi c
Safety Committee, Mental
Health Advisory Commit-
tee, NE Oregon Economic
Development District
Budget Board, NE Oregon
Economic Development
District Board, Local Public
Safety Coordinating Coun-
cil, Baker County Budget
Board, Museum Com-
mission. Volunteer forms
are available at www.
bakercounty.org/commis-
sioners or by emailing
Heidi Martin at hmartin@
bakercounty.org.
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How a baseball star
ended up in Baker
Joe Rudi, a
three-time World
Series winner,
will be inducted
into the Oakland
A’s Hall of Fame
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
If not for a bird he’d never
heard of, and also a fogbound
Seattle airport and a me-
chanic who worked Sundays,
Joe Rudi might never have
ended up in Baker City.
And that, from Rudi’s
perspective almost half a
century later, would have
been a pity.
“Baker was a wonderful
town to raise our kids,” Rudi,
75, said in a phone interview
on Oct. 19 from the home in
Florida where he and Sha-
ron, his wife of 55 years, live
most of the year.
“But when you get into
your 70s, shoveling snow is
not high on your list,” he said
with a chuckle.
Prior to the pandemic, the
Rudis returned to Baker City
during the summer.
Mike Rudi, the oldest of
their four children, lives here.
“We love it there,” Joe
Rudi said. “It’ll always be
home.”
Rudi will have another
reason to travel across the
country in 2022.
That’s when he’ll be a
member of the third group to
be inducted into the Hall of
Fame for the Oakland Athlet-
ics Major League Baseball
franchise.
Rudi, who played left
fi eld, was a key player on
the Oakland teams that
won three consecutive World
Series titles — in 1972, 1973
and 1974.
Rudi, who is among the
more accomplished athletes
to ever live in Baker City,
made a leaping catch, against
the wall, in the ninth inning
of the second game of the
1972 series against Cincin-
nati, preserving Oakland’s
2-1 lead. Earlier in the game,
Joe Rudi was a key player on the Oakland A’s teams
that won three straight World Series, in 1972, 1973
and 1974.
1981 season with the Boston
Red Sox.
Rudi said he actually
learned in January 2020, just
before the pandemic started,
that he had been picked to
join the Athletics Hall of
Fame.
“I was really surprised,”
Rudi said.
His fi rst phone call was
to Sal Bando, his teammate
on all three World Series-
winning teams who is also
part of the Class of 2022 for
the Athletics Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony
was postponed in 2020 and
again this year.
Rudi said he expects it
will be scheduled for Sep-
tember 2022, just before the
50th anniversary of the fi rst
of the A’s three straight World
Series titles.
“I’m looking forward to it,”
he said.
Becoming acquainted
with Baker
Rudi marvels now at
the series of events, some
of them coincidental, that
brought him to Baker City.
He was born in Modesto,
California, and grew up in
Waterford, a town about 20
miles from Modesto, before
his family moved to Modesto
in 1961.
In a 1997 keynote speech
to the Oregon Community
Ron Riesterer/Oakland Tribune-TNS, File
Foundation’s annual con-
From left, Mike Epstein, Dave Duncan, Joe Rudi
vention, Rudi talked about
and Sal Bando dump champagne over their heads
how his dad, Oden, who
as the Oakland Athletics celebrate after beating the
was of Norwegian descent,
Cincinnati Reds in the seventh game of the 1972
worked from dawn to dusk
World Series.
as a dairy farmer and never
He was named to the All- saw his son play baseball,
Rudi hit a solo home run.
Star team three times, won
In the seventh and
or any other sport, until
deciding game of that series, three straight Gold Gloves
he made it to the major
(an award given to the best
Rudi caught Pete Rose’s fl y
leagues.
defensive player at each posi-
ball that clinched the world
After serving in the Ma-
tion) and fi nished second on rine Corps, his fi rst profes-
championship for the A’s.
the Most Valuable Player bal- sional baseball assignment
Rudi hit .333 with four
lot for the American League was to a Class A minor
RBI in both the 1973 World
in both 1972, when he led
Series, when Oakland beat
league team in Modesto, an
the American League in hits affi liate of the Oakland A’s.
the New York Mets, again
with 181, and 1974.
in seven games, and in the
Rudi said 14 players
Rudi hit 179 home runs
1974 Fall Classic when the
from that team went on to
A’s completed their threepeat during his 16-year Major
play in the major leagues —
League career. He retired
by beating the Los Angeles
an almost unheard of suc-
after the 1982 season, when cess rate for a single minor
Dodgers in fi ve games.
he returned to Oakland after league squad.
Rudi’s individual acco-
lades make for a lengthy list, playing from 1977-80 for the
California Angels, and the
as well.
See, Rudi/Page A5
Volunteers nourish Backpack Program
By SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com
The Baker City Backpack
Program, which provides
food to Baker School District
students during weekends,
has continued its efforts dur-
ing the pandemic.
“We’re doing pretty well,”
said Jess Defrees, volunteer
coordinator for the program.
“We’re building our num-
bers but we’re at around
120 backpacks.”
The project, designed to
replace meals that stu-
dents receive at school, was
serving about 250 students
weekly at the end of the
2020-21 school year this
past spring, and Defrees
expects the weekly tally will
TODAY
Issue 71, 12 pages
“We’re having counselors
do that so they can identify
families at any point during
the year who might benefi t,”
Defrees said.
The main difference last
year, she said, is that middle
school and high school stu-
dents didn’t start attending
in-person classes four days
per week until April.
Last school year, volun-
Contributed Photo teers delivered food packages
to students at their homes.
Volunteers gather at the First Presbyterian Church
But this year the
in Baker City on Sept. 30 to fi ll bags with food for
distribution to Baker 5J School District students during Backpack Program has
returned to its usual system
weekends. The Backpack Program started in 2010.
of delivering food to each
school, where the packages
frees said. Students learn
continue to increase in the
are given to students.
about the program when
fi nal two months of 2021.
classes start and begin to
That’s been a typical
progression in the past, De- sign up.
See, Backpack/Page A3
Calendar ....................A2
Classified ............. B2-B4
Comics ....................... B5
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B2 & B4
Dear Abby ................. B6
Horoscope ........B3 & B4
Jayson Jacoby ..........A4
News of Record ........A2
COVID cases
rise again
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Baker County’s month-long
decline in weekly COVID-19
cases ended this week.
From Sunday, Oct. 17
through Thursday, Oct. 21, the
county reported 45 new cases.
There were 37 cases for the
previous week, Oct. 10-16.
The number of weekly
cases had declined in each of
the previous four weeks, from
the record high of 139 from
Sept. 12-18.
Even with this week’s rise
in cases, October’s rate re-
mains well below both those of
September and August, when
the county’s cases, driven, as
elsewhere in Oregon and the
nation, by the more contagious
delta variant, rose rapidly.
September set records for
total cases, with 465, and for
daily average, at 15.5.
August ranks second in
both categories, with 300 total
cases and a daily average of
almost 10.
October, through the fi rst
21 days, has a total of 137
cases and an average of 6.5
cases per day.
That would rank as the
third-highest daily rate during
the pandemic. Prior to the
surge that started the last
week of July, the monthly
record was 6.3 cases per day,
in December 2020.
See, COVID/Page A3
Future of
Lookout
wolves
unsure
Breeding female
could stay in area,
or disperse to fi nd
another mate
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
The Lookout Mountain
wolf pack, which has killed
at least nine head of cattle
and injured three others in
eastern Baker County since
July, has been pared from an
estimated 11 wolves to three.
But how the Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s (ODFW) killing
of eight wolves from the
pack over the past two and
a half months will affect its
behavior in the future can’t
be forecast with confi dence,
according to the agency’s
state wolf coordinator.
“When wolves hunt
they are looking for vulner-
able prey and relying upon
instinct and experience,”
Roblyn Brown, who works
at ODFW’s La Grande
offi ce, wrote in an email to
the Baker City Herald in
response to questions about
the future of the pack. “We
cannot predict what a wild
animal will do in every
different situation, so I will
not predict whether or not
the breeding female will dep-
redate in the future.”
Obituaries ..................A2
Opinion ......................A4
Outdoors ..........B1 & B2
TUESDAY — WEEKEND HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEGE SPORTS ROUND UP
See, Wolves/Page A3
Sports ........................A6
Turning Backs ...........A2
Weather ..................... B6