YOLO with the Yolo High Wheelers
Jul 24, 2024 04:03PM ● By Mitch Barber
DAVIS, CA (MPG) - It takes little effort to find baseball in its purest form, somewhere multi-million dollar salaries don’t lure players into a money game. One has only to look at a Little League diamond, a high school ballpark, or a college’s personal-sized stadium; these places are where athletes participate for the love of the game.
In the city of Davis, on the University of California, Davis campus, such an environment exists on a competitive level: elite-level players throw baseballs and swing bats for little more than spare change.
The Yolo High Wheelers play in the Pioneer League where the squads have no affiliation with Major League Baseball teams. Their stadium is spacious — with a 3,500-fan capacity — but on a blisteringly hot Wednesday this summer only 18 fans occupied the seats in the first inning for a game against the equally wet-behind-the-ears Oakland Ballers, the other first-year professional organization in a league considered just a rung below Single-A ball.
Phil Swimley Field at James M. & Ann Dobbins Baseball Stadium has room for 3,500 spectators. Photo courtesy of Yolo High Wheelers
Doug Greenwald, son of the famed San Francisco Giants commentator Hank Greenwald, met Messenger Publishing Group at Phil Swimley Field at James M. & Ann Dobbins Baseball Stadium — the official name of where the UC Davis baseball team plays its home games — for a daytime contest on July 11. Doug is the High Wheelers’ livestreaming broadcaster, and someone who always has a quick joke.
His enthusiasm toward the Yolo High Wheelers isn’t a surprise; Doug indicated that the team has some 16 former Division I college baseball players who weren’t drafted, yet still have major-league aspirations.
Doug arranged an interview with High Wheelers manager Billy Horton, who was about a five-minute power-cart ride from the stadium, stationed in the team’s clubhouse.
The driver of the cart was Horton’s son, Connor, an outgoing young man with an eye for safety. He was visiting Davis from Arizona to be with his dad, while his high school is on summer break.
The older Horton was a tall, imposing presence in what could be described as the team’s locker room (what looked like former classrooms); he was clothing his chiseled body, complete with six-pack abdominal muscles, when this reporter arrived at the clubhouse in the cart.
Horton’s favorite position as a player was third base, but he had more success as a catcher. He said, “I only started catching because I didn’t hit with enough power.”
The High Wheelers had a winning record at 27-25 at the time of publication, but Horton humbly stated, “I believe our team is better than what our record shows.”
One of Horton’s players is especially local. Jack Zalasky played varsity baseball for Elk Grove High School, and later Sacramento State University. He was happy to be met in the clubhouse hallway on that Wednesday afternoon.
Jack Zalasky kicks his leg high in a game on July 16 versus the Oakland Ballers at Dobbins Baseball Stadium. Photo courtesy of Yolo High Wheelers
Zalasky is tall and lanky, with a dark-brown head of hair that was somewhat disorganized, and he was full of competitive energy. When asked where he saw himself in a couple years, Zalasky said, “I don’t know. I’m just kind of going day by day.”
Zalasky has a tie to catching like his manager; he has a pug/chihuahua named Posey, after legendary San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey.
But there was a game to be played that summer Wednesday.
The bottom of the first inning included a homerun by Yolo High Wheeler Braedon Blackford.
Jack Zalasky delivers from the mound on July 16 versus the Oakland Ballers at Dobbins Baseball Stadium. Photo courtesy of Yolo High Wheelers
During that same inning, a song by Common and Kanye West played over the public address system. (West is a man who made the term “YOLO” famous.) Divine intervention? Or something planned by the PA announcer, Shiloh Roiss-Hume, who has a voice that brings to mind Samuel L. Jackson’s radio broadcasting in “Do the Right Thing?”
