Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Forget the Cubs, D-backs — Tucson is an Indians town
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tucson is a Cubs town. Or is it? Perhaps it’s a Dodgers town. Or a Diamondbacks town. Or maybe it is none of those.
I say it’s an Indians town, and not just because Cleveland staged spring training at Hi Corbett Field from 1947-92.
And not because parts of the classic baseball movie “Major League” were filmed in Tucson.
Here’s why Tucson is a Cleveland Indians town, from No. 1 to No. 61:
Tommy Hinzo, UA second baseman, wore No. 1 for the Indians.
Brad Mills, UA third baseman, Cleveland’s bench coach, wears No. 2.
Mark Carreon, Salpointe outfielder, wore No. 4 for Cleveland.
Camilo Carreon, catcher, long-time Tucsonan, Mark’s dad, wore No. 7 for Cleveland. So did Kenny Lofton, UA point guard and outfielder.
Ron Hassey, Tucson High and UA catcher, wore No. 9 for Cleveland.
Dave Duncan, catcher, long-time Tucsonan, wore No. 11 for Cleveland.
Jerry Kindall, UA Hall of Fame baseball coach, wore No. 14 for the Indians.
Jason Donald, UA shortstop, wore No. 16 at Cleveland.
Dave Rohde, UA shortstop, wore No. 22 for Cleveland.
Terry Francona, UA’s 1980 NCAA Player of the Year, wore No. 24 as an Indians outfielder and wears No. 17 as their manager His dad, Tito, also wore No. 24 as a Cleveland first baseman.
Eddie Leon, Tucson High and UA All-America shortstop, also wore No. 24 for the Indians.
Carl Thomas, dominant UA pitcher of the 1950s, wore No. 25 for Cleveland.
Trevor Crowe, UA outfielder, wore No. 26 for Cleveland. So did Casey Candaele, the former UA shortstop.
John Butcher, Sahuaro High pitcher, wore No. 32 for Cleveland.
Brent Strom, long-time Tucsonan, pitching coach for the Tucson Toros, wore No. 34 for Cleveland.
Jordan Brown, UA outfielder, wore No. 35 for the Indians. So did Bob Lacey, a former Palo Verde pitcher.
Preston Guilmet, UA pitcher, wore No. 36 for Cleveland. So did Rick Waits, a longtime Tucsonan.
Mike Paul, UA pitcher and longtime Tucsonan, wore No. 39 for Cleveland.
John Denny, pitcher, long-time Tucsonan, wore No. 40 for Cleveland.
Doug Jones, former Pusch Ridge High baseball coach, wore No. 43 for Cleveland.
Jason Jacome, Rincon pitcher, wore No. 46 for Cleveland.
Shelley Duncan, CDO and UA home run champ, wore No. 47 for the Indians.
Jon Meloan, UA pitcher, wore No. 59 for Cleveland.
Jason Stanford, Canyon del Oro pitcher, wore No. 61 for Cleveland.
That’s 28 Tucson-affiliated ballplayers with an Indians link. No other MLB team is close.
The Yankees? Only 10 Tucsonans have ever worn the pinstripes.
I’m a sucker for the Cubs and all that goes with them. But let ’em wait. I’ll take the Tribe.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Marana reached the state football playoffs four years in succession from 1982-85, under Paul Schmidt and Mike Hayhurst and then it mostly went dark.
The Tigers haven’t won a state playoff game since 1983, but you could almost see this year’s 7-2 record, with a smashing 54-12 victory over Desert View on Friday, coming.
The school has a $1 million artificial turf. It has a new community entrance to the football facility. Support outside the school has grown, especially after the Tigers met Sabino for the region title a year ago. Moreover, fifth-year coach Andy Litten assembled one of the top coaching staffs in the state.
Litten’s staff includes offensive line coach Brent Bartz, a civil engineer who was on hand when Gary Minor built Ironwood Ridge’s football program from scratch. It includes Kevin Corner, one of the top players in Mountain View High history, who is now Dr. Kevin Corner, the head of the MHS college and career readiness program. It includes former UA and NFL receiver Syndric Steptoe and former Catalina Foothills head coach Scott Cortese. The MHS staff includes Jake Price, Kelly Cutright and Toby Bourguet, and they are pushing the right buttons.
“The kids and I are very lucky to have all of them around,” Litten said Saturday. “We have seen progress here for years, but it hasn’t always been with wins and losses. We just stayed on course, even through some very hard times, with nights like the game at Desert View in our minds. It’s really cool to see something you care about so much come to fruition.”
Now it gets even more difficult. The Tigers are in the 5A state playoff classification with undefeated powers Cienega and Desert Edge. Hang tight, it should be fun.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Two of Tucson’s leading high school athletes made their college choices last week: Sunnyside wrestler Roman Bravo-Young, 83-0 with two state titles in two seasons, chose Penn State over a list of college wrestling’s top powers. CDO discus thrower Turner Washington told Arizona coach Fred Harvey he will be a Wildcat. Washington visited Alabama, which is coached by former Arizona All-America discus/shot put thrower Doug Reynolds. Reynolds was a contemporary of Turner’s father, Anthony Washington, especially while they were attempting to make the USA Olympic teams of 1996 and 2000.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona is recruiting Ironwood Ridge linebacker Ken Samson, and has invited Samson to a pair of games at Arizona Stadium this season. Stanford is also recruiting Samson, and I can’t ever recall Arizona beating Stanford in a recruiting contest, whether it be softball’s Sarah Beeson of CDO or football’s Corey Hill of Sabino, or anyone.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes probably scored her top recruiting victory last week, getting 6-foot-1-inch Shalyse Smith of Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma, Washington, to commit before she begins her junior season. One of the reasons Niya Butts failed at Arizona is because she never could deploy quality tall players; Smith is a move in that direction.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Salpointe Catholic senior point guard Cameron Miller, son of UA coach Sean Miller, received seven college scholarship offers in one day last April while playing in an AAU tournament. None were Division I, however. He patiently waited and last week Youngstown State of the Horizon League made him an offer.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When Tommy Medina left Pima College’s golf team 12 years ago, he seemed bound for the PGA Tour. He became a two-time All-American at Grand Canyon, played well on the Gateway Tour and at the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School. But four years ago the former Quarry Pines Golf Club employee was diagnosed with colon cancer. It has been a long struggle. OB Sports, which operates seven courses in Tucson, is staging a fundraising event for Medina and his family. The Nov. 4 event will be held at the Mount Graham Golf Club, which is in Medina’s hometown of Thatcher. Entry details: dpalmer@aznational.com.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
BYU’s Nico Montanez, a St. Augustine High School grad, is a favorite to win the West Coast Conference men’s cross country championship Friday in San Diego. Montanez, a senior, finished second in the WCC finals a year ago, and is currently ranked No. 19 of all NCAA runners by FloTrack.com.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced that capacity to the new T-Mobile Arena for March’s Pac-12 basketball championships will have a seating capacity of 18,000. That’s roughly 5,500 more seats than the MGM Grand Arena, which never had difficulty filling up for Friday/Saturday games. Even Arizona is having difficulty selling out McKale Center for the 2016-17 season; the Wildcats last week announced a ticket marketing campaign that packages games against College of Idaho, Sacred Heart, UC Irvine, Texas Southern, Colorado, Washington, Stanford and USC for $220. Toss in the UCLA game and you’ve got a deal.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona’s women’s soccer team, coming off back-to-back NCAA Tournament seasons, lost at 0-6 Oregon on Thursday. To make it worse, the 1-5-1 Wildcats were then stuck in Corvallis, Oregon, until Sunday, delayed 24 hours so they could be part of the Pac-12 Network programming. If you don’t have a charter flight, that means Tony Amato‘s soccer team left Tucson Wednesday at mid-day and returned from the Oregon trip late Sunday night. Not good.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former UA second baseman Scott Kingery, the 2015 Pac-12 Player of the Year, is teammates with Tim Tebow on the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League. As much as Kingery is struggling, hitting .174, Tebow is worse. He was batting .100 through Friday.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tim Derksen and Lester Medford, teammates on Amphi’s 2011 state basketball championship team, both were named EuroLeague Players of the Week last week. Derksen, playing for Marin Ence in Spain, scored 32 points against Huesca and is averaging 22.8 per game. Medford, playing for Falco KC of Hungary’s EuroLeague, had a 25-point, 10-rebound game in a victory over Vasas. Derksen played at San Francisco; Medford at Baylor.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When 6-foot-9-inch Californian Ira Lee committed to Arizona last week, he was the consensus No. 58 ranked prospect n the Class of 2017. By Saturday he had moved up to No. 32, and he hadn’t played a game. That is the power of the UA basketball brand.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Based on all I have read, Kaleb Tarczewski will be released by the Oklahoma City Thunder Monday or Tuesday, which is the day NBA teams have to reach a 15-player limit. In Sports Illustrated’s annual NBA edition last week, the magazine’s “anonymous NBA scout” wasn’t exactly full of praise for Solomon Hill, Derrick Williams and T.J. McConnell. The scout wrote that New Orleans’ Hill has “a bad attitude,” which is absurd. Hill is totally opposite that. On the 76ers’ McConnell, the scout wrote “I don’t like him at all,” which again seems like he has the wrong guy in mind. And on the Heat’s Williams he writes “ehhh, I don’t really care.” Tough business.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
In their two games so far, the Tucson Roadrunners played Friday night games before crowds of 10,727 in San Diego and 3,332 in Stockton, California. Split that in half, about 7,000, and you’ve got a crowd the Roadrunners hope to get in Friday’s 7 p.m. home opener at TCC Arena.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona’s top football recruit, four-star athlete Greg Johnson of Los Angeles’ Augustus Hawkins High School, is taking an official visit to Nebraska this weekend.
At an Oct. 13 Hawkins home game, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and USC’s Clay Helton watched Johnson play. What part of “commitment” don’t college recruiters and high school prospects understand?
Perhaps that’s why UA offensive line coach Jim Michalczik attended Friday’s Las Vegas Desert Pines High School’s game, watching offensive tackle Edgar Burrola play. Burrola long ago committed to Arizona, but last week sent a Twitter message that said he had received an offer from UNLV and that it “made my day.”
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be college football recruiters.
Tucson is a Cubs town. Or is it? Perhaps it’s a Dodgers town. Or a Diamondbacks town. Or maybe it is none of those.
I say it’s an Indians town, and not just because Cleveland staged spring training at Hi Corbett Field from 1947-92.
And not because parts of the classic baseball movie “Major League” were filmed in Tucson.
Here’s why Tucson is a Cleveland Indians town, from No. 1 to No. 61:
Tommy Hinzo, UA second baseman, wore No. 1 for the Indians.
Brad Mills, UA third baseman, Cleveland’s bench coach, wears No. 2.
Mark Carreon, Salpointe outfielder, wore No. 4 for Cleveland.
Camilo Carreon, catcher, long-time Tucsonan, Mark’s dad, wore No. 7 for Cleveland. So did Kenny Lofton, UA point guard and outfielder.
Ron Hassey, Tucson High and UA catcher, wore No. 9 for Cleveland.
Dave Duncan, catcher, long-time Tucsonan, wore No. 11 for Cleveland.
Jerry Kindall, UA Hall of Fame baseball coach, wore No. 14 for the Indians.
Jason Donald, UA shortstop, wore No. 16 at Cleveland.
Dave Rohde, UA shortstop, wore No. 22 for Cleveland.
Terry Francona, UA’s 1980 NCAA Player of the Year, wore No. 24 as an Indians outfielder and wears No. 17 as their manager His dad, Tito, also wore No. 24 as a Cleveland first baseman.
Eddie Leon, Tucson High and UA All-America shortstop, also wore No. 24 for the Indians.
Carl Thomas, dominant UA pitcher of the 1950s, wore No. 25 for Cleveland.
Trevor Crowe, UA outfielder, wore No. 26 for Cleveland. So did Casey Candaele, the former UA shortstop.
John Butcher, Sahuaro High pitcher, wore No. 32 for Cleveland.
Brent Strom, long-time Tucsonan, pitching coach for the Tucson Toros, wore No. 34 for Cleveland.
Jordan Brown, UA outfielder, wore No. 35 for the Indians. So did Bob Lacey, a former Palo Verde pitcher.
Preston Guilmet, UA pitcher, wore No. 36 for Cleveland. So did Rick Waits, a longtime Tucsonan.
Mike Paul, UA pitcher and longtime Tucsonan, wore No. 39 for Cleveland.
John Denny, pitcher, long-time Tucsonan, wore No. 40 for Cleveland.
Doug Jones, former Pusch Ridge High baseball coach, wore No. 43 for Cleveland.
Jason Jacome, Rincon pitcher, wore No. 46 for Cleveland.
Shelley Duncan, CDO and UA home run champ, wore No. 47 for the Indians.
Jon Meloan, UA pitcher, wore No. 59 for Cleveland.
Jason Stanford, Canyon del Oro pitcher, wore No. 61 for Cleveland.
That’s 28 Tucson-affiliated ballplayers with an Indians link. No other MLB team is close.
The Yankees? Only 10 Tucsonans have ever worn the pinstripes.
I’m a sucker for the Cubs and all that goes with them. But let ’em wait. I’ll take the Tribe.
Marana reached the state football playoffs four years in succession from 1982-85, under Paul Schmidt and Mike Hayhurst and then it mostly went dark.
The Tigers haven’t won a state playoff game since 1983, but you could almost see this year’s 7-2 record, with a smashing 54-12 victory over Desert View on Friday, coming.
The school has a $1 million artificial turf. It has a new community entrance to the football facility. Support outside the school has grown, especially after the Tigers met Sabino for the region title a year ago. Moreover, fifth-year coach Andy Litten assembled one of the top coaching staffs in the state.
Litten’s staff includes offensive line coach Brent Bartz, a civil engineer who was on hand when Gary Minor built Ironwood Ridge’s football program from scratch. It includes Kevin Corner, one of the top players in Mountain View High history, who is now Dr. Kevin Corner, the head of the MHS college and career readiness program. It includes former UA and NFL receiver Syndric Steptoe and former Catalina Foothills head coach Scott Cortese. The MHS staff includes Jake Price, Kelly Cutright and Toby Bourguet, and they are pushing the right buttons.
“The kids and I are very lucky to have all of them around,” Litten said Saturday. “We have seen progress here for years, but it hasn’t always been with wins and losses. We just stayed on course, even through some very hard times, with nights like the game at Desert View in our minds. It’s really cool to see something you care about so much come to fruition.”
Now it gets even more difficult. The Tigers are in the 5A state playoff classification with undefeated powers Cienega and Desert Edge. Hang tight, it should be fun.
Two of Tucson’s leading high school athletes made their college choices last week: Sunnyside wrestler Roman Bravo-Young, 83-0 with two state titles in two seasons, chose Penn State over a list of college wrestling’s top powers. CDO discus thrower Turner Washington told Arizona coach Fred Harvey he will be a Wildcat. Washington visited Alabama, which is coached by former Arizona All-America discus/shot put thrower Doug Reynolds. Reynolds was a contemporary of Turner’s father, Anthony Washington, especially while they were attempting to make the USA Olympic teams of 1996 and 2000.
Arizona is recruiting Ironwood Ridge linebacker Ken Samson, and has invited Samson to a pair of games at Arizona Stadium this season. Stanford is also recruiting Samson, and I can’t ever recall Arizona beating Stanford in a recruiting contest, whether it be softball’s Sarah Beeson of CDO or football’s Corey Hill of Sabino, or anyone.
Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes probably scored her top recruiting victory last week, getting 6-foot-1-inch Shalyse Smith of Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma, Washington, to commit before she begins her junior season. One of the reasons Niya Butts failed at Arizona is because she never could deploy quality tall players; Smith is a move in that direction.
Salpointe Catholic senior point guard Cameron Miller, son of UA coach Sean Miller, received seven college scholarship offers in one day last April while playing in an AAU tournament. None were Division I, however. He patiently waited and last week Youngstown State of the Horizon League made him an offer.
When Tommy Medina left Pima College’s golf team 12 years ago, he seemed bound for the PGA Tour. He became a two-time All-American at Grand Canyon, played well on the Gateway Tour and at the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School. But four years ago the former Quarry Pines Golf Club employee was diagnosed with colon cancer. It has been a long struggle. OB Sports, which operates seven courses in Tucson, is staging a fundraising event for Medina and his family. The Nov. 4 event will be held at the Mount Graham Golf Club, which is in Medina’s hometown of Thatcher. Entry details: dpalmer@aznational.com.
BYU’s Nico Montanez, a St. Augustine High School grad, is a favorite to win the West Coast Conference men’s cross country championship Friday in San Diego. Montanez, a senior, finished second in the WCC finals a year ago, and is currently ranked No. 19 of all NCAA runners by FloTrack.com.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced that capacity to the new T-Mobile Arena for March’s Pac-12 basketball championships will have a seating capacity of 18,000. That’s roughly 5,500 more seats than the MGM Grand Arena, which never had difficulty filling up for Friday/Saturday games. Even Arizona is having difficulty selling out McKale Center for the 2016-17 season; the Wildcats last week announced a ticket marketing campaign that packages games against College of Idaho, Sacred Heart, UC Irvine, Texas Southern, Colorado, Washington, Stanford and USC for $220. Toss in the UCLA game and you’ve got a deal.
Arizona’s women’s soccer team, coming off back-to-back NCAA Tournament seasons, lost at 0-6 Oregon on Thursday. To make it worse, the 1-5-1 Wildcats were then stuck in Corvallis, Oregon, until Sunday, delayed 24 hours so they could be part of the Pac-12 Network programming. If you don’t have a charter flight, that means Tony Amato‘s soccer team left Tucson Wednesday at mid-day and returned from the Oregon trip late Sunday night. Not good.
Former UA second baseman Scott Kingery, the 2015 Pac-12 Player of the Year, is teammates with Tim Tebow on the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League. As much as Kingery is struggling, hitting .174, Tebow is worse. He was batting .100 through Friday.
Tim Derksen and Lester Medford, teammates on Amphi’s 2011 state basketball championship team, both were named EuroLeague Players of the Week last week. Derksen, playing for Marin Ence in Spain, scored 32 points against Huesca and is averaging 22.8 per game. Medford, playing for Falco KC of Hungary’s EuroLeague, had a 25-point, 10-rebound game in a victory over Vasas. Derksen played at San Francisco; Medford at Baylor.
When 6-foot-9-inch Californian Ira Lee committed to Arizona last week, he was the consensus No. 58 ranked prospect n the Class of 2017. By Saturday he had moved up to No. 32, and he hadn’t played a game. That is the power of the UA basketball brand.
Based on all I have read, Kaleb Tarczewski will be released by the Oklahoma City Thunder Monday or Tuesday, which is the day NBA teams have to reach a 15-player limit. In Sports Illustrated’s annual NBA edition last week, the magazine’s “anonymous NBA scout” wasn’t exactly full of praise for Solomon Hill, Derrick Williams and T.J. McConnell. The scout wrote that New Orleans’ Hill has “a bad attitude,” which is absurd. Hill is totally opposite that. On the 76ers’ McConnell, the scout wrote “I don’t like him at all,” which again seems like he has the wrong guy in mind. And on the Heat’s Williams he writes “ehhh, I don’t really care.” Tough business.
In their two games so far, the Tucson Roadrunners played Friday night games before crowds of 10,727 in San Diego and 3,332 in Stockton, California. Split that in half, about 7,000, and you’ve got a crowd the Roadrunners hope to get in Friday’s 7 p.m. home opener at TCC Arena.
Arizona’s top football recruit, four-star athlete Greg Johnson of Los Angeles’ Augustus Hawkins High School, is taking an official visit to Nebraska this weekend.
At an Oct. 13 Hawkins home game, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and USC’s Clay Helton watched Johnson play. What part of “commitment” don’t college recruiters and high school prospects understand?
Perhaps that’s why UA offensive line coach Jim Michalczik attended Friday’s Las Vegas Desert Pines High School’s game, watching offensive tackle Edgar Burrola play. Burrola long ago committed to Arizona, but last week sent a Twitter message that said he had received an offer from UNLV and that it “made my day.”
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be college football recruiters.
View this profile on Instagram#ThisIsTucson 🌵 (@this_is_tucson) • Instagram photos and videos
Most viewed stories
-
Cheer on the Wildcats in the Final Four at these local restaurants and bars 🐻⬇️
-
Over 30 fun events happening in Tucson March 27-29!
-
Over 70 fun events happening in Tucson in April 🎡🐰
-
New Eats! 20 new restaurants that opened up in Tucson this winter 🍽️
-
Bloomfest celebrates palo verde blooms and Tucson culture
-
5 basement bars and speakeasies to visit when you want a fun drink and cool AC
-
Over 40 exciting events to check out this weekend! 🌱
-
OaxaRico opened their first brick-and-mortar, serving up delicious mole and gorditas