Early Sandy Baseball
Sometime around 1910, organized baseball began with town teams in Sandy, Estacada, Eagle Creek, Boring, Damascus, and Gillis, short for “Gillis Station”, a stop on the Bull Run Railroad located at the intersection of the present Orient Drive and Boring Road. Sandy Historical Society has a picture of the Eagle Creek team in about 1910 which was composed of eight Douglass brothers and an uncle, and one of the 1916 Sandy Town Team which was the first year Sandy had baseball uniforms.
Looking back in time, Sandy’s baseball field in the mid-teen years took up the entire block that is now taken up by the Clackamas County Bank. The “new” Sandy Grade School hadn’t been built until 1931 so that area was part of the baseball diamond. Highway traffic through Sandy was then a block away on Main Street (now Pioneer Blvd.) so there was little traffic on Proctor Blvd.
Try to visualize this Sandy Baseball diamond with home plate being located near the present bank entrance and second base being in a northwesterly direction. A well-hit ball would often roll up against the St. Michael Catholic Church which was in deep center field. The second St. Michael Catholic Church was built on the lot where the La Bamba restaurant now stands.
In 1932 Sandy’s own team played with teams in the Portland Valley League. The above described field had been terminated by the construction of the Sandy Grade School building that opened in 1931. Town team home-games then had to be played on the high school field for a few years. The outstanding player on this team was Arnie Fenger who was still in high school and would later have a successful career as a pitcher at Oregon State College. Sandy’s baseball coach “Pop” Rannow was not at all pleased that the town team had him pitching on Sundays and wearing out his arm before the high school games.
Ken Scales, brother of Tom Scales, was a former player on the Sandy Town Team who then went on to the University of Oregon. He was a star pitcher there before going into medical school and then into a long career in Portland as an M.D.
The 1946 Sandy High School Baseball Team won third place in the first Oregon State High School Athletic Association baseball tournament held in Oregon. (In 1947 the organization name was changed to Oregon School Activities Association or OSAA to include other activities such as band and choir.) The first place went to Central Catholic and second to Sherwood. Members of the Sandy baseball team were Coach “Pop” Rannow, Lawrence Lund, Art Colson, Dean Gray, “Bud” Bergseth, Fred Morgan, Les Wolf, Mel Updegrave, Jim Morgan, Don Lundbom, Jack Williams, Fred Goger, Earl Bell, and Darrell Eliason.
Material sourced from Hometown Sandy Oregon by Phil Jonsrud, copyright 2011 by Sandy Historical Society, Inc., pp. 51-52; 80 Years in the Same Neighborhood by Phil Jonsrud, copyright 2002 by Sandy Historical Society, Inc., p. 140; https://www.osaa.org/docs/bbl/records/baseballchampions.pdf; https://www.osaafoundation.org/osaa/
