Freitas Awards Highlight The Best Of The Minors

Four teams stood out from the pack this past season

- Josh Norris And Michael Lananna

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FRESNO (PACIFIC COAST)

The most successful minor league promotion over the last few years unquestionably belongs to the Fresno Tacos, er, Grizzlies. What started in 2015 as novel idea—wearing taco-themed jerseys to coincide with their annual Taco Truck Rodeo—has blossomed into a merchandise empire complete with its own website apart from the traditional team store.

“It’s funny what ideas you can come up at 1 a.m. after an eight-game homestand when everybody’s delirious,” Grizzlies GM Derek Franks said. “You can come up with some interesting stuff, and we’re really happy that it’s worked out and caught fire. It’s been really great for our business, and obviously it’s caught on and other teams are doing it.”

The tacos theme has its roots in Fresno’s annual taco truck throwdown, which brings scads of the area’s vendors out to Chukchansi Park to sell their wares to hungry fans. That event started in 2011, but it really kicked into overdrive after the fourth year.

So, on the night of the fourth Taco Truck Throwdown, after a sellout crowd had left Chukchansi and the staff had begun recuperating, an idea struck during a conversation among Franks, promotions director Sam Hansen and media manager Ryan Young.

“Ryan said, ‘The weirdest thing about it, though, is we have the biggest crowd of the year but it’s strange to see nobody watching the game,’” Franks said. “Sam said ‘We should do a theme jersey next year, at least give them something to look at,’ because it was just another Grizzlies game. … It looked like two-thirds of the crowd was just eating tacos, drinking beer and goofing off.”

Thanks to Franks, Hansen, Young and the Grizzlies, tacos and baseball are forever connected in Fresno.

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