“A town of a million people, there’s a need for baseball,” said Tucson Toros General Manager Sean Smock.
After a decade-long hiatus, the Toros are back in the Old Pueblo.
  
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“Today is probably three- to four-fold (what we expected),” said team owner Jay Zucker of the community turnout.
The business of baseball in the city has been shaky as of late.
Last week the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to accept a $5 million-payoff from the Chicago White Sox to allow the team out of its contract to use Tucson Electric Park for spring training. Within 24 hours, the Arizona Republic in Phoenix reported the Arizona Diamondbacks are now also looking to relocate spring training away from Tucson once the team’s contract expires in 2011. And the Colorado Rockies are also looking, now that the team can break its spring training at the City of Tucson’s Hi Corbett Field because there are no longer three teams who spring train in Tucson.
In September the AAA Tucson Sidewinders of the Pacific Coast League left for Reno where the team will be known as the Aces starting next summer.
At one time, the AAA team in Tucson was known as the Toros and played at Hi Corbett from 1969 to 1997, when the team moved to the county’s Tucson Electric Park.
The new Toros will be back at Hi Corbett.
The Rockies have asked for $30 million in renovations to the aging stadium. Some have suggested it would be better to build them a new facility in order to keep them spring training in Southern Arizona.
The renovations would be nice for the Toros, but are not necessary, Zucker said, adding that the main hurdle for the team’s first season is parking and shuttle services.
Zucker, who owned the Sidewinders, said the future is still uncertain for Major League Baseball Spring Training, but his new team provides a vital place for other teams who have great players but nowhere to put them.
The next step for the Toros will be to hire a team manager, then a coaching staff and finally, the team itself.
The Toros will play in the Golden Baseball League. Not affiliated with Major League Baseball, the four-year-old independent league has 10 active teams in Arizona, California, Canada, Nevada and Utah.
Unlike the Sidewinders, which was a minor-league affiliate of the Diamondbacks, the Toros are not associated with a professional team. Still, several Golden Baseball League players have been called up to the majors and former stars such as Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson have played in the league.
The test will be whether Tucsonans will pay to see players they are unfamiliar with.
“I prefer to see players I’ve heard of,” said resident Jim Fleischer, who came to the team’s open house with his wife to see “what was going on with the Toros.”
Fleischer had heard of the team, but was not in town to them play in their heyday. He’s been to a few Spring Training games and said that attending one or two Toros games seems likely.
“People like to see players that are good,” he said.
While most players wade through Major League Baseball’s farm system before making it to “the show,” Golden Baseball League players have been noticed by professional scouts.
“What’s good about us is we sell a hell of a lot of players to the (professional) organizations,” said Glenn Dobson, Jr., assistant general manager of the Golden Baseball League Yuma Scorpions. He said two players on the Yuma made the jump to the big leagues this past season.
The Scorpions draw about 2,000 fans to Yuma’s 10,000-seat stadium on weekend games and about half that many during weekday matchups, according to Dobson.
Beginning May 21, the Toros will play 44 games at Hi Corbertt and the promotion staples - “Thirsty Thursday” and “Fireworks Friday” - will be back, too.
Unlike their predecessors, the Toros will begin play at their old 9,500 capacity stadium near Broadway and Country Club in Reid Park. That central location may give fans more to do outside of game time, a common complaint about Tucson Electric Park’s location in a largely industrial area on the southside.
“If you take a map of Tucson and make an “X” in the middle, that bull’s-eye is Hi Corbett,” Zucker said.
Contact reporter Nicholas Smith at nsmith@azbiz.com or 295-4238.
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