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It’s time for Dodger baseball … in Ontario!
The Ontario Tower Buzzers' inaugural season starts April 2. It's the new team in the Dodgers' minor league system.
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Courtesy Ontario Tower Buzzers
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Yeah, baseball season is here! So let's welcome the brand new Ontario Tower Buzzers
Introducing the Ontario Tower Buzzers, the new minor league team from the Dodgers. Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports.
You may not be familiar with the Ontario Tower Buzzers. But if all goes to plan, you soon will.
The Dodgers’ new minor league team begins its inaugural season Thursday playing in a new stadium, ONT Field. (ONT is the code for Ontario International Airport).
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The Single-A team will throw its first pitch as the Dodgers begin what could be a historic season in Major League Baseball (can you say three-peat?!). History will already be made when the first fans go through the turnstile at the Ontario stadium on Opening Day.
“This has been a dream for a lot of people, for a better part of two decades, to bring a minor league baseball team here,” said Tower Buzzers General Manager Allan Benavides.
That name
It’s hard enough to explain what a dodger is, but what’s a tower buzzer?
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“Obviously a straight nod to the movie Top Gun,” Benavides said. In that 1986 film, Tom Cruise plays a reckless fighter pilot, nicknamed Maverick, who flies closer than allowed to the runway control tower.
The aviation theme is built into the stadium’s design along with signage of Ontario Airport, the team’s title sponsor. The mascot, appropriately, is Maverick, an aviation glasses-wearing giant bee (as in “buzzers”), and uniforms hue to the Dodgers’ style, with “Buzzers” proclaimed on jerseys.
"Maverick" is the Ontario Tower Buzzers' mascot.
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Courtesy Ontario Tower Buzzers
)
ONT Field is in the new stadium for the Ontario Tower Buzzers. The stadium has an aviation theme. Its lead sponsor is Ontario Airport.
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Courtesy Ontario Tower Buzzers
)
Who’s on first?
Most of Tower Buzzers’ players are between 19 and 22 years old, out of high school and college, along with players from other countries. Keep an eye on the team’s web site as it announces the list of players who made it on the team roster.
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Tickets, $$$???
Remember when Dodgers tickets felt affordable? Currently the cheapest tickets are selling for about $178 on MLB.com. Tickets for the Tower Buzzers’ Opening Day start at just over $37.
The Ontario Tower Buzzers are a Single-A team, the lowest rung in a minor league system with Triple-A teams at the top.
The Oklahoma City Comets is the Dodgers’ triple-A minor league team, where the Dodgers’ players closest to entering the major leagues play.
Future stars
And that means it's possible to see a future hall of famer at a single-A game.
“My little brother and I went to a Quakes game when Mike Trout was playing with the [Rancho Cucamonga] Quakes and we were there when he hit a grand slam to win a playoff game for them,” said Jonathan Campos, president of the Ontario Mountain View Little League.
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The Tower Buzzers’ inaugural season is a big deal for youth baseball in the region, Campos said, and his Little League in particular. His league’s four fields are across the street from the Tower Buzzers’ new stadium and that’s generated a lot of interest among his players to have a night for his league at a Tower Buzzers’ game this season.
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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