YES! JIM THORPE WAS A PORTLAND BEAVER IN 1922

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[Animal Lover]

Jim Thorpe arrived in Portland in 1922 at the age of 35. He was on the trail of thousands of other baseball players that have traveled at the end of their careers. Jim was hired by Bill Klepper, owner of the Beavers, at $1,000 per month (a pretty good sum in those days) hoping to increase attendance at Vaughan Street. Jim arrived with injuries and was broken down. He did manage to play 35 games, with 37 hits in 120 at bats. Jim was released by the Beaver May 31, 1922.

The young lady in the picture is Viola Dana, a thrice married movie star that had a pretty good career of 113 movie appearances. She lived to be 90.

[DG]

Thorpe was a Portland Beaver, but not for long. In early February 1922 37 year old Jim Thorpe was purchased for $5,000 from Toledo, ($83,000 today) and paid $1,000 a month ($17,000 today) and played in his first game as a Beaver on March 12, 1922, but was released by the Beavers on June 1, 1922. Thorpe's age and injuries drove the decision to release Thorpe and you with two younger and less expensive players.

Oregonian 6/1/22 Lame shoulder handicap. Thorpe has given his best services to Portland since he joined the club and has kept himself in condition so far as he was able, but circumstances for which he was not to blame kept him from doing his best work. He was handicapped at the outset by a lame shoulder. He could hardly throw to the diamond and runners scored on short flies to his field. On top of that he lost his batting eye, worry over his arm no doubt having much to do with that. Even so, he was hitting .307 when released. For three weeks big Jim has sat on the bench, being used only occasionally as a pinch hitter.

[DG]

The Beavers 1922 season was 199 games long and ended on October 15, 1922 and they finished in 7th place out of 8 teams with 87 wins and 112 losses. Jim Thorpe only played in 35 games.

[Jann M]

Ok, not Bevos related, but baseball, and Portland... did you know that two of the Mavericks players created Big League Chew bubblegum, here in the Portland area? They both had tried chewing tobacco once, did not like it, and thought of gum. It has now passed one BILLION packages, and the flavour chosen was root beer. Caught this on History's 'Adam Eats thee 80's'..