The Tucson Toros returned to the Old Pueblo this summer, reuniting old fans and creating new ones.
No longer wedded to a single major league team, the independent ball club is now part of the Golden Baseball League, and is home to a variety of talent from first-time pro athletes to former major league players. And like the team roster, its fanbase spans from rookies to veterans. What ties fans, players, coaches and staff together is not just a love of baseball, but the Toros connection to the community.
In a relatively short time, Jay Zucker, president and CEO of the Tucson Toros, has assembled a staff and team that seems more like a family than a business. On game day, when the gates at Hi Corbett Field open, Zucker is there to welcome in the Toro’s community of fans.
Season ticket holders Carl Mosby and his wife Patricia have been long-time Toros fans. “When we moved here about 15 years ago we were with the Toros; then with the Sidewinders, and then back with the Toros,” Carl says
Many fans return not only for the baseball and to experience the Hi Corbett ambiance, but for the nostalgia.
Marialene Brobeck recalls bringing her two children, now 40 and 42, to Hi Corbett in 1969. At that time, the Toros were the AAA team affiliated with the Chicago White Sox.
“Those little kids grew up here.” Brobeck recalls, and she is “absolutely delighted” with the return of the Toros. She feels “a closeness” at Hi Corbett that newer, larger, parks lack. “And I have heard that from so many people,” she says. “We are so grateful to Jay for bringing it back.”
Zucker spends his game time mingling with fans and tending to business that may arise during the game. Keeping to his philosophy of baseball as family, Zucker presided over a wedding at home plate prior to the first pitch of a recent game.
Toros hospitality only begins with the owner.
“It’s something we have emphasized for years,” says Sandy Davis, Toros director of inside sales. “Make the fans feel that this is home, a place that people would want to bring their family and friends.”
Davis, who has worked at Hi Corbett for 14 years, does more than sell season tickets and book parties, she lays the foundation for fans to feel personally connected to the Toros.
Fans like Greg and Kristi Harrell.
“We were kids again when the Toros came back here,” Greg says. “We were real excited.”
The last few years were tough for the Harrells. Greg was diagnosed and treated for cancer so he and his wife Kristi decided to spend this summer far from hospitals and medical procedures. They thought they needed a healthy dose of Toros baseball.
“Life is good and people should enjoy it,” Greg says.
The couple grew up with the Toros and this summer sit in the front row just to the right of home plate.
Regular fans like the Harrells draw the attention of the Toros. Like Hitting Coach Pete LaCock, a former major league player, who always takes the time to chat with the couple at the games.
You notice people that are there all the time and you want to know if they like it and if they’re are having fun,” LaCock says. “It’s part of baseball, the fans are the ones who make or break you.”
According to Zucker, the Toros mission is to integrate the players into the community. Activities like school tours, serving as reading mentors, visiting children at Tucson Medical Center and hosting a kid’s camp, are all part of being a Toro.
Field Manager Tim Johnson, who managed winter baseball in Mexico for 17 years, says they think of the fans as the eleventh player on the field. “We want to give back to them what we get.”
And the giving back seems to be appreciated. The Toros averaged 2,000 fans at each home game and totaled around 88,000 fans in its first season in the Golden League.
Among the 2,000 fans are Denise Wagner and her son Matt Eldridge, an eighth grader at Magee Middle School.
Matt hopes to play pro ball some day, so when he heard that the Toros kid’s camp would include hands-on instruction with Toros players, he signed up.
During camp, Matt was practicing his batting with Toros infielder Mayobanex Santana, a former major league player. Matt took a swing at a third pitch Santana delivered and twisted his leg. He dislocated his knee and fractured his ankle, an injury that required surgery and a two-inch screw.
Throughout his recovery and rehabilitation, Matt and his mom attended home games and sat in the seats along the railing just beyond the Toros dugout. The boy seems to have established “his own fan club” of Toros players, Wagner says.
“Mayo (Santana) would be the first one to come up to him and ask how he was doing,” Wagner says. The ball player even went to Matt’s home to help celebrate his 13th birthday. He gave him a bat.
“It made his day,” Wagner says.
“We are an extended family,” Zucker comments.
For the Toros, the family-friendly practices have brought in die-hard fans and new ones like Matt.
And they have brought in the money as well. The team’s economic impact on Tucson is “several million dollars” for the season, according to Zucker.
The Toros were in first place going into the playoffs and ended their first season in second place in the GBL championships.
And that’s no bull.
