A Brief History of Oregon Little League Baseball
Over the last 20 years, Oregon has produced many competitive Little League teams, starting with Murrayhill l.l and Clackamas l.l , who won 5 consecutive District 2 championships from 1990-1994. The '94 Clackamas team won the Oregon State Championship and had they not lost to Hawaii in the semifinal, would have had a chance to play Northridge, California in the Western Regional Championship in San Bernadino, California with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassell leading the way for Northridge at the time. I was a part of this experience, as my older brother, Ryan Hill, was an integral part of that '94 Clackamas team. He tied major leaguer Sean Burroughs,( who won back to back little league world series in 1992-1993 as the leader of Long Beach, California little league), for strikeouts in a game (18) and most strikeouts in the western regional.
Skipping ahead to 1997, I was a member of Clackamas Little league all-stars and in all four of my years playing from '94-'97, we lost in the championship each year (two years, '94-'95 was 9&10 year old all-stars) The '97 team lost to the same team we had lost to the previous year in the Oregon District 2 championship, Gresham National L.L. Gresham had a great team, led by James Allen, Scott Gallagher, and Kyle Petersen and were a juggernaut little league band of players. They went on to win the Oregon State Championship in '97, and played very well in San Bernadino, as Allen hit 4 home runs in one game vs Nevada. That team finished 3rd in the Western Region.
Years Later, Murrayhill L.L. from Beaverton,OR, broke the streak of Oregon teams coming up short in the regional, and made it to where every kid dreams of being, the Little League World Series, played annually in Williamsport, Pennsylvania now for 65 years.
This year the same opportunity presented itself for another Oregon L.L team. North Bend advanced to the Northwest Regional Championship, as it is now a different format from the tournament I was at watching my elder brother. Teams from Hawaii, California, and Arizona are now in the West Regional, and Oregon Washington, Montana, Idaho are in the Northwest Regional.
The Northwest Championship, played August 13, 2011, matching Montana vs Oregon, ended up being a celebration for Montana, and a familiar shortcoming for another Oregon L.L team, this time North Bend All-Stars being the victim, losing 7-1. The boys and families can not look at this as a failure, playing in a regional tournament broadcast nationally on the largest sports entertainment company in the world , ESPN, cannot ever be a bad situation. As the saying goes, any exposure is good publicity, and the Oregon team should feel very accomplished and remember they did something many teams in the history of Oregon L.L could not do. They played on ESPN for the Northwest Regional title, Any team from Oregon L.L should be as proud as playing in the World Series itself for that accomplishment.
Article By: Ronald Hill - Sports Junkie Publications/ Sports Information Company
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