Updated at 3:32 p.m., Friday, July 13, 2007
Colleges: Oregon will field baseball team in 2009
Associated Press
EUGENE, Ore. — The University of Oregon will bring back baseball for the 2009 season after an absence of nearly 30 years.The Ducks are the only Pac-10 school without a baseball team. Oregon State has won the last two College World Series championships.
Oregon last fielded a baseball team in the 1980-81 season, when it was relegated to a club sport because of budget constraints. The school started its baseball program in 1876 and won the Pac-10 title 14 times.
The Ducks also plan to discontinue their wrestling program following the 2007-08 season and add varsity women's competitive cheer, Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny announced today.
"The first intercollegiate sporting event played on the University of Oregon campus was a baseball game back in 1877; just one year after the UO was established," school president Dave Frohnmayer said. "It is especially fitting that Pat has decided to bring baseball back to the University of Oregon on the 130th anniversary of that first game."
The Ducks made it to the College World Series in 1954, but were eliminated after losses to Arizona and Massachusetts.
Kilkenny said the university wasn't swayed by Oregon State's consecutive championships and the excitement that Beaver baseball generated in the state.
"It's great for the state of Oregon, it seems like they're really good kids, Coach Casey seems like he represents the state admirably," he said. "But everything that we do, we're not going to do if we don't feel like we can be excellent at it. Secondly, we take a very long-term view of what it is we're going to do."
