Bend Elks

Jim and MaryAnn Richards founded the Bend Elks Baseball Club in 1999 with the hope of saving Vince Genna Stadium from demolition. The Elks joined the Pacific International League. Bend continued their affiliation with the league through 2004. In 2005 the Elks along with Bellingham, Kelowna, Spokane, and Wenatchee left the league to form the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League (WCCBL). [1]

The Bend Elks went 31-23 in the 2014 WCL season finishing 4 games behind the leading Corvallis Knights and were awarded the first ever WCL wild card spot. Bend was eliminated after the WCL Divisional Series to the rival Corvallis Knights in 2 games. The Elks were Hit by the pitch 72 times and set a WCL record for the most times hit at the plate in one season. The front office of the Bend Elks put 42,030 people through the turnstiles in 31 games at home with 1,356 per game.

In October of 2014, John and Tami Marick purchased the Bend Elks Baseball Club from Jim and MaryAnn Richards. The Maricks are founders of Consumer Cellular, a nationwide wireless MVNO based in Tigard, Oregon, with one of its three corporate locations in Central Oregon.[2]

In 2015 the Bend Elks won the WCL championship series.

The Elks are the latest in a long history of semi-pro and minor-league teams to call Central Oregon home.

The Elks' most notable alumnus is current New York Yankees outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who played for the team in the summer of 2002. Some other Elks alumni to have played in the major leagues are Brian Barden, Eric Sogard, Trevor Hildenberger, and Blaine Hardy.[3]