The all-time list is finally done!

This blog hasn't worked out quite as well as I had hoped, or at least as of this writing it hasn't. Producing mini biographies is considerably more difficult than I thought it would be (taking some writing courses way back when probably would've helped with this). I envisioned doing at least a few posts a month, but have only managed a handful over the last year or so. I have about a dozen unfinished drafts though; that counts for something, right?

I'm hoping things will pick up around here at some point, but on the off chance that they don't, I wanted to at least do one thing to make this blog stand out from any other similar sites; that being to finish my already more complete than any other sites list of all-time Beavers players. And I'm happy to say that I've finally done it.

I've been going at it pretty hard for the last four weeks, but I think that the effort was well worth it, as I now have a list of every known Portland Beaver, ever! The only downside is that all of this research has added a few more names to my list of unidentified players, which as of a few days ago was at 23. I have identified one more as of this writing though (post coming soon), so now it's down to 22. These names will be added to the overall list as they're identified, or probably in some cases, not identified. 

I'm not sure how many names are on the all-time list, but I noticed a while back that my old list seemed to be testing the limits of how much data one can store on a Blogger page, as it was slowing down all of my devices every time I attempted to add another name. With this in mind, I did have to break up the list in to two pages, A-L, and M-Z. It's not ideal, but it'll do for the time being.

I realize that there will only be a finite amount of people who will ever be interested in such a list, but if you just so happen to be one of those people, you can check out A-L here, and M-Z here. Of course you can always just click on the tabs that are underneath the blog's header too. I'd like to make those stand out a little more, but haven't figured out how to do it yet. I will though.

It took considerably longer to finish than I had imagined, but it's done, and now I can focus a bit more on those mysterious final 22 guys that no one currently has any real information on.

New site feature

From the moment I decided to start this blog, I knew that I would also want to try and create a list of every player to ever suit up for the Beavers. There already are a couple of similar lists out there, but despite their impressive size, none are complete. In fact, the two largest are at best, maybe halfway complete. I'm sure that's more than enough for most folks, but for my, and this blog's purposes, a much more finished list is/was going to be needed.

I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few months working on my list, and even though it's still not complete, I've decided to publish it anyway. I'm hoping that putting out an unfinished list will inspire me to put in the extra effort to get it finished, as I've really started to slack off as of late. If I had to guess, I'd say that I still have around 1,500 to 2,000 more names to add to the list, but even so, what's currently up is still the largest list of former Beavers that I know of. I didn't anticipate it taking so long to complete, and as such, don't know when it'll be done. I'd like to think that I could finish it by summers end, but who knows. Anyways, if anyone's so inclined, the page is now up, and can be found up under the header (and yes, I know, I still need to figure out how to make the link more noticeable).

Oh, and for the couple of people who've been kind enough to ask, the all-time list also contains my list of specific cards that I'm looking to add to the collection, as well as the cards that I've already acquired. Unlike the all-time list, I haven't spent much time looking for the ideal card for each guy -- I've found that to be even more tedious than working on the all-time list. I'll be very surprised if I ever get the want list completed. And as far the all of the guys who never had a card, or other ephemeral item, produced with their likeness on it goes, well, in a perfect world, I'd seek out customs for all of them at some point; but I don't see that happening either. I'm thinking that I'll just have to make some kind of placeholder for all of them, and call it good.

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to spend moment to publically thank, Jeff, from Wax Pack Wonders, for all of the behind the scenes assistance that he's been providing. Not only has he clued me into multiple sites for researching, he's also taken the time to look up a few things for me on sites that I don't have access to. He's also been kind enough share all of his crossover research that was acquired while working on his book. That material is particularly interesting because it deals with pre-Beavers baseball in Portland, and has given me an idea for a future series that I'm tentatively calling "Before there were Beavers". To say that Jeff's efforts have been appreciated, would be an understatement, but for lack of knowing how else to say it, they are appreciated, and I'm very grateful!

I had hoped to have another real post (i.e. one featuring a player) up by now, but am currently working on four write-ups, three of whom are guys that have yet to have anything written about them (at least online). Assembling all of the material that I've accrued, and trying to present it in an entertaining manner, is taking longer than expected (I think that that's going to be a reoccurring theme around here). As I've mentioned multiple times already, the kind of researching, and writing, that I'm trying to do for this blog is new to me, and has seemingly created somewhat of a learning curve. I have no doubt that the process will speed up as I become more accustomed to it, but for the time being, new posts probably won't be coming as frequent as I would like.

Coming soon: We'll be looking at a guy who was a big star in another league, joined the Beavers, then left before ever playing a single game for the team.