UO's FIELD OF DREAMS OR FANTASY BASEBALL?

Byline: Bob Clark The Register-Guard

It has become a rite of June, as regularly as Oregon State seems to make a trip to the College World Series. What about Oregon?

`I hear it all the time,' said Mel Krause, the coach when Oregon dropped baseball as an intercollegiate sport after the 1981 season. `When is Oregon going to have baseball again?'

Well?

Probably not soon, and not ever without overcoming serious obstacles in the areas of finances and gender equity, and to a lesser extent finding a facility. On the other hand, there's continuing talk, and notably there is a new director of athletics at Oregon.

`I'm a big baseball fan,' acknowledged that man, Pat Kilkenny, `but this is not about Pat Kilkenny or anyone in the department who happens to like to go home and turn a baseball game on at night.'

Kilkenny hasn't shied away from the questions about baseball coming back, which started at the news conference announcing his hiring in the winter. He recognizes the `passion' of baseball supporters to resurrect the sport, and he has relayed that to UO President Dave Frohnmayer, who in turn has told the AD to `do whatever I deem best for the University of Oregon.'

Which means there has been discussion, and it's likely to continue.

`When you get a lot of feedback on something, you have to give it some level of attention,' Kilkenny said.

But is it any kind of priority? Are the Ducks as close as some of baseball's advocates might like to think to any kind of announcement of a plan to bring baseball back?

`There's a lot of work to be done to get to that point, but there are a lot of people who would like something to be done,' Kilkenny said.

Is he one? `It was not part of my charge when I was hired for this position,' he said. `I had a very specific' assignment, which is to move the Ducks forward on a new basketball arena.

While there's a popular feeling that the new arena's anticipated revenue will suddenly pave the way for baseball, Kilkenny said `one doesn't relate to the other.'

So what about the popular scenario pushed along that UO benefactor Phil Knight might be more inclined to donate a significant amount of money for the arena if the Ducks also had baseball coming back, since the sport is popular with his wife, Penny?

That idea gained impetus when Jim Bartko, who has had the closest relationship with Knight of UO administrators, was brought back to the department this spring as an associate director, but with a heavy emphasis on raising the funds for the basketball arena.

Like his boss, Bartko said there is `no correlation' between the basketball facility and the return of baseball. Asked specifically about his gauge of the interest of the Knights regarding Oregon playing baseball, Bartko said, `I've never talked to them about baseball ... there's never been a link' between a donation for the arena and the return of the sport.

A facility is one of the issues with baseball's return at Oregon, though behind the more paramount challenges of finances and gender equity.

The Ducks could no longer play baseball at Howe Field, their previous home for the sport, because of its conversion for softball with its shorter fences, which couldn't be extended back because of construction beyond what is now right field.

What about being a tenant at the same facility used by the Eugene Emeralds? Eugene's minor league team would welcome the company, in Civic Stadium or a in new facility, which has been long proposed though is currently without a financial solution.

`Sharing would work beautifully,' said Bob Beban, the president of the Ems.

In current scheduling for college teams and the Northwest League, there would be no conflicts. But college baseball is looking at pushing its season later into June, and Beban is an advocate of the Northwest League extending its season with an earlier start - in the middle of May instead of a month later as it currently stands.

`If we did overlap, then we would have to work together to solve conflicts, but I know we could,' Beban said.

Before Oregon ever took a look at Civic Stadium, and it would be a liability in recruiting without the extensive - and expensive, more than $10 million - remodel that Beban envisions if the Ems stay there, the Ducks would have to overcome the bigger challenges of finances and gender equity to play baseball.

The Ducks are forecasting a slight budget deficit in the current fiscal year. They were on the positive side of their $41 million budget last year by $340,000 after showing a deficit in the 2004-05 fiscal year.

Adding baseball would probably cost Oregon about $1 million annually, a figure Kilkenny agreed was a fair estimate. Oregon State, for instance, is budgeting about $1.5 million for the next fiscal year.

As far as balancing the budget, Kilkenny said `we're pretty close, but in my view we're on the wrong side of close.'

Could the Ducks balance that loss - and baseball would bring in scant revenue to offset the expenditure - with more donations from those `passionate' supporters?

`It sounds like there are some prospects of more money,' Kilkenny said, `but it's not something I have spent much of my time on.'

Baseball supporters have long argued that Oregon is losing out on donations by not having baseball, because supporters have refused to give money unless the Ducks sponsor their sport.

`We always hear that,' Bartko said of fundraising. `We hear it with other sports, too. We can't make a decision (to bring back baseball) based on that.'

And even if Oregon increased its income enough to afford baseball - from the proposed arena or a significant increase in giving - there remains the issue of gender equity, under what is commonly referred to as Title IX, the federal legislation that mandates men and women be treated equally in college sports.

The Ducks are not in compliance with Title IX in the area of `proportionality.' In Oregon's case, it means that because 53 percent of the UO undergraduates are women, then roughly the same percentage of its athletes and scholarship athletes should be female.

Instead, the latest figures available for Oregon, from the school year ending in 2006, show that women are 45 percent of the scholarship athletes (135 to 165 men) and 38 percent of the total participants (155 to 253 for men).

`We need another women's sport now,' Kilkenny said of correcting that imbalance.

The Ducks have added soccer and lacrosse for women in the past decade, an indication to the NCAA and government that they are making progress on the issue. Bringing back baseball before adding yet another women's sport would throw the percentages further out of compliance, however.

`It's not a total deal breaker, but it's a pretty tall mountain to climb,' Kilkenny said of Title IX issues as they relate to baseball.

To add baseball the Ducks would need to add two more women's sports instead of the one that is planned in the next five years. `That's probably the correct math,' Kilkenny said.

There is also the argument that Oregon could drop one of its men's sports and replace it with baseball. Take wrestling, and baseball's backers would say it's there for the giving.

In both the Pac-10 and nationally, baseball is a far more popular sport among member institutions. In Oregon's wrestling league, only three other Pac-10 schools field an intercollegiate team, while the other nine Pac-10 schools all play baseball. In Division I, there are now 89 schools that field wrestling teams, while 293 played baseball this year.

But trading wrestling for baseball would still hurt Oregon's percentages in terms of gender equity.

The NCAA scholarship limit for wrestling is 9.9 full rides, compared with baseball's 11.7. And the division of those rides would further throw gender equity out of compliance, figuring there were 18 UO wrestlers sharing that sport's total aid this season, while the baseball scholarships likely would be divided up among 25 or more players.

Wrestling's budget for this year is $629,000, which might be two-thirds of what baseball would cost - though simply dropping wrestling would help the Ducks in terms of balancing their overall budget, and moving closer to Title IX compliance.

Kilkenny said it would `be an awfully difficult decision to drop a sport," but he's also one who avoids using the word "never" in any context.

That's probably the best way to look at the proposed return of baseball at Oregon: Don't say never, but understand the issues that stand in its way.