Arizona Women's Basketball

WBC Tucson Qualifier Notebook: Event overall success with learning points for future endeavors

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Brazil celebrates its first opportunity to play in the World Baseball Classic in 13 years (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)

The overall feel of the organizers of the World Baseball Classic Qualifier that was completed Thursday night at Kino Veterans Memorial Coliseum is one of optimism for the future of the event and of professional baseball in Tucson.

The MLB representatives on hand were complimentary of how the event was operated and organized by the different community entities, according to the organizers.

“They liked how everything was ran and put together,” said Blake Eager, the executive director of the Southern Arizona Sports, Tourism, and Film Authority. “We’re optimistic of what this could bring to Tucson in the future.”

Southern Arizona community officials will likely make a bid to MLB to host future WBC qualifying events.

Crowd size averaged only 2,183 in the seven games at the 11,000-seat facility, with a smaller-than-expected crowd of 2,247 on Thursday night for the game involving Brazil and Germany for the second qualifying spot for the 2026 WBC.

Factors are involved with the low-attendance figures.

Many people in Tucson do not know much about the players who represented Colombia, Brazil, China and Germany. A minimal amount of players were major leaguers. Most play professionally internationally or within their own country. One of Brazil’s standouts in its 6-4 win over Germany was Lucas Rojo, who came out of retirement to help his country earn a spot in the WBC for the first time since 2013.

Games at 11 a.m. during the middle of the week are an extremely tough draw. Organizers had to get with the Pima Country Superintendent Office to have young students bused in to help attendance in those games.

This is the first event of its kind in Tucson. As time goes on, a tradition may build through increased awareness leading to more fan involvement.

The Mexican Baseball Fiesta draws overflow crowds to its games at Kino in October because Mexican professional teams are involved as well as Arizona. Most of all, it’s a party scene with live bands and more variety of food and alcohol choices.

Manny Ramirez takes the time to autograph baseballs for the batboys (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)

To a baseball purist, the atmosphere at Kino Stadium was on point this week. It was mostly focused on the baseball on the field with some music played from the PA system. A gentleman with a trumpet known as the Ballpark Bugler delighted the crowd on occasion.

But there was no live music. No mascots. No raffles.

Promotions were planned, including $1 hot dogs and $2 beers during Thursday’s final game of the week.

The organizers certainly tried, and by all accounts, the MLB officials left Tucson impressed with their professionalism and effort.

One suggestion: Plans should be in place to improve the fan experience so moderate baseball fans can enjoy the experience along with the avid ones.

Brazil celebrates second WBC berth

Brazil is headed back to the WBC next year for only the second time after first qualifying in 2013.

An interesting twist is third baseman Leonardo Reginatto, one of the top players from Thursday night’s victory, was also on the 2013 team, and one of his teammates representing Brazil back then was current manager Yuichi Matsumoto.

Reginatto, who will turn 35 next month, went 1 for 4 with a run, double and RBI against Germany. He has played professionally mostly in Mexico and Venezuela.

In four qualifying tournaments in which Brazil has participated, including in Tucson, Reginatto has batted .510 with 26 hits. He said after Thursday’s game that this will be his last qualifier.

“One of the things that kept me playing baseball was to be here with these guys right now,” Reginatto said. “I have no words to explain now, but it means not only a lot for me, but for the whole country, for the whole people.”

The most noticeable figure all week at Kino was Manny Ramirez, father of Brazil right fielder Lucas Ramirez.

The younger Ramirez, who had two hits and an RBI against Germany, celebrated with his dad near the mound after the victory.

Manny joined reporters asking questions of Lucas after the game and interjected: “Who taught you how to hit?”

“I taught myself how to hit,” Lucas joked back at him.

Another son of a major-leaguer — Dante Bichette Jr. — played in the same city where his dad participated in spring training at Hi Corbett Field with the Colorado Rockies back in the 1990s.

Bichette, a one-time prospect of the New York Yankees, has remained in the game to play with Brazil, his mom’s native country. As a cleanup hitter against Germany, he went 3 for 4 with a run and two RBIs.

“This is absolutely my favorite team,” Bichette Jr. said. “I’ve said that for the last nine years I played with them. As long as I can help Brazil, I will. I’m just honored to be a part of this, really.”

Couple of games had a Silver lining

Dave Silver served as the public-address announcer for two games during the World Baseball Classic Qualifier at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium this week (Silver photo)

Longtime Tucson sports broadcaster Dave Silver, who was with KGUN-TV Channel 9 for 28 years, went behind the mic of a different kind this week at Kino Stadium.

He was the public address announcer for two of the games, both of which involved China, which had some challenging names to pronounce.

“It kind of made it more interesting,” Silver said about having to learn the Chinese names. “I just didn’t really know what to expect.

“As far as doing the PA, that kind of came naturally anyway. But there was always that looking ahead, ‘What’s this? Next name and the next name, who’s it going to be? Am I going to be able to get this correct?’ I wanted to make sure I got it as close as I could.”

The Chinese public-relations representative gave Silver a phonetic list of all the names.

The task was much less daunting then having to read a long list of names at Arizona graduation ceremonies while he spent 12 years attracting alumni donors for the Arizona Foundation.

“I would get those names and had two seconds to look at it and read it, and there would be some interesting, different variations on names that I had to get through,” Silver said.

Silver’s work at Kino as the PA announcer is one of many aspects of him being involved in the community.

He volunteers his time as a guest co-host on Steve Rivera’s “Eye on the Ball” radio show, serving food at the Community Food Bank and working with both the Arizona School of Journalism Advisory Council and the Tucson Festival of Books. He is on the Book and Author committee for sports and memoir books for the Festival of Books, which takes place next weekend.

He also occasionally walks with a group of 30 people in different parts of the city.

Silver mentioned he is so active in retirement because he does not want to let anything pass him by, including the opportunity to see the potential beginning of professional baseball returning to Tucson.

“When I was sitting there doing those games (at the WBC Qualifier), I am looking out there, and it felt really great to be part of that type of event,” he said. “I never thought we would see anything like that again here in Tucson.

“To have the games here and get some international coverage with professional baseball players with the stadium looking great, I was thinking, ‘Why couldn’t we have kept this?’ I hope we did enough this weekend to get baseball to come back.”

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