By Tim Binnall
A baseball team in Portland, Oregon has a rather peculiar promotion planned for this weekend: 'D.B. Cooper Night.' The unique event comes by way of the delightfully-named collegiate summer baseball team the Portland Pickles and will be held this coming Sunday in conjunction with a game against the Victoria HarbourCats. As for what the evening will entail, the team says that they are "asking all fans to come forward with all information related" to the infamous skyjacking case.
After collecting these insights from attendees, the Pickles boldly promise that they will "put together all the clues throughout the evening and finally solve the only unsolved case of air piracy in commercial aviation history." While we have our doubts that the team will be able to best the FBI when it comes to unraveling the notorious caper, the clever event is something of a testament to how D.B. Cooper has seemingly transformed into a modern-day folk hero akin to famous outlaws like Billy the Kid.
Oddly enough, the baseball game is actually the second Cooper-themed event set to take place this weekend with a boat tour devoted to the skyjacker also being held along a river in Portland on Saturday and Sunday. It would appear that the timing is coincidental and more of an indication of just how popular the story has become in recent years in both the region and beyond. To that end, this is actually not the first time that the mysterious outlaw has been celebrated at a baseball game as a minor league team in Pennsylvania hosted a 'Conspiracy Night' in 2017 that featured Cooper-themed jerseys.