With Vancouver about to start 6 consecutive games against them, the time has come to ruminate on why no team can rein in the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.

What is it about Salem that makes them that damn good that Vancouver can go 4-5 in Yakima and still drop a game back? As of August 25, Salem has won 13 consecutive games. In a division otherwise tinged with similar talent, are the Volcanoes so much better?

Why does every Eastern Division team that plays S-K roll over like a turtle?

For Pete’s sake; Salem took ALL 10 versus Spokane, which must have driven their insane fan club insane. They broke Tri-City, who are in the middle of a pennant race, one they were let back into by Salem, who previously had rolled up Boise.

Is it because they are a more talented team?

Is it because the Giants, unlike the A’s, are willing to let high draft picks sit a full-year in the NWL to fully season as a pro?

Does the Volcanoes organization aggressively lobby to keep their talent, because otherwise there’s no other reason to stop between Portland and Eugene?

Or could Dr. Faustus have something to do with it?

Let’s examine.
 

The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes moved to the Oregon capital from Bellingham, Washington in time for the start of the 1997 season. In part due to a terrible lease in a dilapidated stadium, the moved to Salem was arranged (and assuaged) by the guarantee of a new stadium, control of parking revenue, and a larger metropolitan market.

They are “Salem Keizer” because the stadium is in Keizer, but the world has heard of Salem. They are then corrected and reminded that it’s not the witch city on the East Coast, and referred to the one in Oregon, the patchouli capital of North America. 

A look at the rosters for the Giants next closest affiliates, the Augusta GreenJackets and the San Jose Giants, reveals no 2006 draft picks. In fact, the roster for Augusta perfectly reflects last year’s Volcanoes roster, right down to Will Thompson, who in fact played for Salem the first month of the season. (In a polite nod to a good player, he ultimately got promoted to San Jose once his rehab was done. That was an awful broken leg he had.)

As of August 19, Will Thompson and Mark Minicozzi are the only 2005 Volc’s to have advanced beyond their draft year class. 
Meanwhile, every other team in the Western Division has suffered through the anorexia known as the call-up, where the best player on their team goes up one level and the home team gets the best players from a division below.

From the Vancouver perspective, we have lost (in no particular order): Chad Boyd, Todd Johnson, TJ Franco, Ben Jukich, Branden Dewing, and Matt Sulentic; Don Sutton and Casey Myers left for Arizona rehab; and Jermaine Mitchell has been gone since Spokane hit him ON PURPOSE.

We might even lose a few more, because Stockton is so depleted, and they’ll have to pick from Kane, and Kane has a playoff run going. 
Since moving to Salem Keizer in 1997, the Volcanoes have been the only Western Division team to win the NWL Championship, in 1998 and 2001. They have had a consistent record of finishing in the top 2 in the Western or Southern Division.

Benefiting from a good run of Giants draft picks, they have been able to utilize the fact that poor Giants showings result in high round draft talent, many of whom, as stated, remain for an entire year in the Salem-Keizer fold.

Since moving to Vancouver in 2000, the former Southern Oregon Timberjacks have had a spotty success rate. Having recently won back-to-back NWL division titles in 2004 and 2005, it has helped account for previous third- and fourth-place finishes in the previous seasons.

Why?

There is only one factor I can hypothesize.

Since moving to Salem-Keizer, the Volcanoes have had only two announcers, Pat Dillon and Pat Lafferty. After the inaugural 1997 season, when Dillon got a ‘baptism of fire’ as a radio rookie (sticking with the Lucifer angle) alongside Lafferty, he soon moved on to the Everett Aquasox radio gig, leaving Lafferty, a former play-by-play man for the Portland Trailblazers, to run solo. Lafferty has been in the booth for every game the Volcanoes have played since that move, and was present for both their championship victories.

Dillon, meanwhile, has been with the Everett Aquasox since 1998, a team that has never (in its current form) won a NWL pennant. Both the Canadians and Eugene Emeralds have had equal inconsistency in the announce booth; the Canadians were so desperate as to let a beer vendor call their games!

The one constant in this equation is Pat Lafferty. I speculate he has made a Faustian compact. A deal with the Devil.

The evidence is all there. The veteran broadcaster. The immediate victory upon his ascension, having cast aside the interloper (Pat Dillon). The inability of other divisional rivals to ascend the lofty heights during his tenure. It’s pure Doctor Faustus.

Anyone who has met Pat Lafferty knows of what I speak. The “mercenary drudge Who aims at nothing but external trash”; the man who will tell you that “that’s not how we do things in the Northwest League.”

Think about it: In exchange for receiving the privilege of working for a consistent winner, not suffering the vagaries of traditional rookie ball teams, and having somewhere to fall after vacating the Trailblazers job (akin to Lucifer’s fall in “Paradise Lost”, Book 1.263 "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n."), is it so out of line to contemplate the exchange that might have been made?

In exchange for a collection of rings and memories, a modern-day “living in voluptuousness;” with Satan “to give me whatsoever I shall ask; to tell me whatsoever I demand; to slay mine enemies and aid my friends; and always be obedient to my will”, all Pat had to promise was his soul.

“Nothing so sweet as magic is to him, which he prefers before his sweetest bliss.”

It’s an act, in this era of the juiced ball and ballplayer, which couldn’t be less surprising. What man doesn’t want one more kick at the can; a ride at the top; the admiration and envy of his peers? And a soul, in these morally indifferent times, has no value above the desired fame you leave behind.

Given that the soulless parent club of the Volcanoes openly celebrates their juiced-up hero, I can hardly fault one so far down the food chain for arranging his own trade. To quote Mephistophilis (Scene V): Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris - "Misery loves company".

So, it is the devil who is responsible for this year’s Volcanoes success. Now THAT makes sense. Not even Billy Beane could work around that. Maybe Steinbrenner…but he is the devil.

Sorry, I digress.

If true, and all we have is idle, vengeful speculation, we will have to live with Pat and this success for "four and twenty years" - until 2022; but the trade-off will be when Hell opens up and takes his soul.


Anybody who has met him would agree that has to be the arrangement. “Faustus gives to thee his soul”; enjoy the playoffs Pat. “The God thou serv’st is thine own appetite.”