Portland's 1945 pennant win, Portland held a banquet at the Multnomah Hotel (now the downtown Portland Embassy Suites). Oregon Governor Earl Snell presented a commemorative watch and gold and diamond ring to each player at the banquet. The watches were given to the players because L.H. Gregory of The Oregonian requested that fans donate money to a fund for the purpose. Gregory did this because he felt it was not right that no memento was given to the players from the 1936 championship team. Following the 1945 season, Norgan purchased Klepper's share of the team, becoming the team's new owner. In 1946 the Beavers fell to the bottom half of the league, finishing in seventh place, 41 games out of first. In 1947 Eddie Basinski joined the Beavers, and they finished third, losing to the Los Angeles Angels in the first round of the playoffs. The team drew a record of 421,000 fans that season. This record would stand for the Beavers until the 2001 season when AAA Baseball returned to Portland. In 1948 the team finish fifth, followed by a sixth-place finish in 1949. The 1949 season began the integration of the Pacific Coast League as Frankie Austin and Luis Marques became Beavers. Beginning with the 1950 season the Beavers finished fourth for four straight years. Clay Hopper, who had been Jackie Robinson's manager when he played for the Montreal Royals in 1946, was named the team's manager in 1952. This year also marked the first year the Pacific Coast League, and the Portland Beavers, were classified by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues as an "Open League." The open league was a step above AAA, and was an attempted by the Pacific Coast League to be considered the third major league. Plans for a new ballpark were announced by the team in 1953. Originally the team planned to build a new stadium at 82nd & Holgate in Southeast Portland. Due to the Korean War, among other issues, the stadium never came to fruition. In 1954 the team dropped again to the bottom of the league. After the 1954 season the team went up for sale via public stock, which resulted in 2,400 new owners for the 1955 season. With the change the Beavers rose to fifth place, only nine games back of first. In 1956, the Beavers left Vaughn Street Park to move into 25,000-seat Multnomah Stadium,