Baseball is the national pastime for a reason, and each pocket of the country has its own unique connection to the sport. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of this nation, we’re taking you on a summer road trip across the U.S. with Baseball in America, presented by Booking.com, 50 stories from all 50 states. Follow along here.
On a summer night in Portland, Oregon, you might be able to attend an opera performance, or a wrestling match, or a drag show, or a wedding. All you need to do is make your way to the local ballpark.
Just about 10 miles east of downtown is Walker Stadium, home of the Pickles, a college summer ball team that prides itself on delivering boundary-pushing entertainment to a diverse community of fans, mirroring the city’s embrace of counterculture and its unofficial slogan: Keep Portland weird.
“I don’t know that anyone worries about their freak flag when they go to a Pickles game, and that’s how it should be,” West Coast League commissioner Rob Neyer said.
Pickles games are much more than the product on the field – which is an extremely good one, by the way. The team won its first West Coast League championship in 2024 and followed that up in ’25 by setting the league’s single-season record for wins with 43. You’ll come for the baseball, to be sure, but you’ll stay for the close-knit environment, for the chairs that are raised after a run is scored, for the beloved mascot Dillon T. Pickle, and for everything wacky and wonderful in between.
“There’s something for everyone, and we really do our best to activate different audiences and different communities in Portland in order to bring everybody together and the love of baseball and the love of community and their neighbors,” said Courtney Schmidt, the team’s general manager.
Take, for example, the upcoming Marriage Night on July 11. It’s an attempt to set a world record for the most couples married at a baseball game (the current mark is 34). All of this will take place on the field, and former Seahawks punter and Super Bowl champion Jon Ryan – who is also a co-owner of the team – will serve as the legally ordained officiant.
Now in their 11th season, the Pickles have built a devoted Deadhead-esque following. This is no coincidence. The team is hosting Grateful Dill Night on Friday, featuring a Tie Dye station, a postgame laser light show and an onsite tattoo parlor.
Then there’s Emo Night later in the summer, a fan-favorite that Schmidt said the team brought back by popular demand. It’s billed as “a night dedicated to heartbreak, eyeliner, and songs that somehow still know exactly where to find us.” Don’t miss out on the food and drink special: The “Cut My Life into Pieces” (Chopped up hot dogs on top of nachos) and the “Black Heart Slushy.”
The club’s full promo schedule is an eclectic menu of pickle-inspired nods to musical legends (Dillie Nelson and Dilly Parton Nights) mixed with nostalgic pop culture phenomena. On a given night you can celebrate anything from Napoleon Dynamite to Hannah Montana to The Mandalorian to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“Now more than ever, fans are wanting to feel supported by the teams that they’re supporting, and be able to feel proud wearing the jersey and repping the organization,” Schmidt said. “So we definitely take a lot of pride in being a voice for our community, and we want to make sure our values and our actions are reflecting those of our fans as well.”
This plucky Portland team was first put on the larger map by a viral video of a fan – who also happened to be a Pickles summer intern not on the clock that night – being plucked out of the stands for an at-bat during the Pickle All-Star Game. All he did was hit a home run.
“That was the end of his summer and he got to have that to cap it off,” Schmidt said. “He was just overwhelmed and blown away by the whole thing.”
The palpable joy of his trip around the bases could be felt by everyone at the ballpark, and every person watching on their phones. That is the crux of what the team is trying to do. Beyond the promos or the theme nights or the perhaps mistakenly risqué social media post by their mascot, the Pickles want to reflect their unique fanbase. And they hope to spark some joy in the process.
“There are so many different things going on, and it’s such a safe, welcoming, happy place to be,” Schmidt said.
