The Wilson Times: Tobs hope to keep rolling beyond 2025 in Wilson December 31, 2023 By Paul Durham paul@wilsontimes.com | 252-265-7808. https://restorationnewsmedia.com/articles/college-sports/tobs-hope-to-keep-rolling-beyond-2025-in-wilson/
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WILSON WEATHER
Tobs hope to keep rolling beyond 2025 in Wilson
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December 31, 2023
By Paul Durham
paul@wilsontimes.com | 265-7808
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Wilson Tobs players celebrate a teammate’s home run during a game Tuesday, Aug. 1, at Fleming Stadium. Sheldon Vick | Special to the Times
As Wilsonians adjust to the idea that minor league baseball will return to the city in just two years, the team for which they’ve rooted for the past 27 years is adjusting to the idea that it won’t be the only game in town for much longer.
The Wilson Tobs, however, have no immediate plans to vacate Wilson when the Carolina Mudcats arrive in the spring of 2026 to play in a new downtown stadium for which construction has yet to begin, but the future beyond that is uncertain for the summer collegiate baseball franchise that started play here in 1997 as a charter member of the Coastal Plain League.
Wilson Tobs president Greg Suire speaks during the Wilson Hot Stove banquet Jan. 22, 2019, at Recreation Park Community Center. Paul Durham | Times
Greg Suire, the Tobs president who purchased the team with Richard Holland in 2010, said that Tobs have a lease through 2025 at Fleming Stadium, the home of baseball in Wilson since it opened in 1939. The Tobs have traditionally operated on a three-year lease from the City of Wilson that has placed the organization in a caretaker role for the historic structure that faces some major renovations if it will continue as the home of the team.
That’s a big if right now, Suire said in a telephone interview last week.
“I guess in my four negotiations with the City of Wilson, I have never had a concern about the contracting,” he said. “In years past, we did not have a $75 million stadium going up coinciding with the expiration of our lease. So, I would hope that we could create this dialogue. We will be here in the next two years and we will flourish. We will continue to serve the people of Wilson in partnership with the City of Wilson. We made that commitment and we’re dedicated to continuing that commitment.”
Fleming Stadium underwent repairs last spring after closing signficant portions of the grandstand during the 2022 CPL season and even afterwards still wasn’t 100% in terms of capacity. The stadium will continue in the same manner for 2024 and 2025 but a new grandstand of some type is likely needed for a long-term commitment.
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Suire said that his initial reaction to the City of Wilson’s announcement in February that it was exploring options to build a stadium for the Mudcats, the Class-A Carolina League affliate of and owned by the Milwaukee Brewers, to play here was that the town wasn’t big enough for both teams and if the Mudcats left Five County Stadium in Zebulon for Wilson, the Tobs would either move or fold.
However, as more details of the plan emerged, Suire thinks there’s a market for the affordable entertainment and community involvement that the organization has brought to Wilson.
“We want to be a part of Wilson’s growth,” Suire said. “We think that the uniqueness of Wilson’s baseball roots allows for this downtown growth to occur, but you can’t just take the historic component out of the equation. It’s got to be a mix.”
The formula that Suire and Holland brought to the Tobs from their other CPL franchise, the High Point-Thomasville HiToms, when they bought the team has been to combine public service and opportunities with the product on the field each summer to make the organization viable throughout the calendar year. Under current general manager Mike Bell, many of these programs have flourished and grown over the years.
“We launched this vision 13 years ago when Rick and I purchased this team,” Suire said. “The Turnage family, of course, which was a great caretaker of the Tobs brand, pretty much had a what we would call a season business, right? They did their business from Memorial Day to first week in August when it came to the Tobs season would start, go through it and then they wrap it up and then for about eight and a half months, Fleming Stadium would be whatever the recreation department deemed it to be that year.”
COMMUNITY INSTITUTION
Suire quickly points to the programs such as the Tobs Fall League for high school baseball teams plus the spring Tobs Varsity Classic and Tobs Junior Varsity Classic tournaments that attract high school teams – and spectators – to Fleming that have been extremely popular outside the summer months.
“We’ve been able to thrive and to be able to achieve our vision, which really is outside of the box,” he said. “The Mudcats do not do what the Tobs do in the offseason. They do not have what I call ‘calendar and bookend programming,’ ie, spring baseball, where they attract people to Wilson to play and then of course fall stuff. We pioneered all that collectively under our leadership, both in Thomasville and High Point and Wilson. We have over 22 Fall League high school baseball teams. Over 400 high school kids play fall baseball because of our vision in those two communities. So our success has been because of the city. They have believed in us and they had that confidence and we had the shared values about making Fleming this go-to location and in this process of transition, which we are now in, we are now in a transitional state from where we are to where we want to go and where we’re going to end up. We hope that the city still believes in the youth amateur baseball programming that we’ve been able to pioneer. That’s what we want.”
Volunteers Jenna Wagoner, left, and sister Alyssa Wagoner help Luncheon Lions Club members Zelle Phelps and Freddy Massimi, right, during one of the Wilson Tobs’ Home Run for Hunger events at Fleming Stadium on June 23, 2019. Olivia Neeley | Times file photo
The Tobs also have been tireless in pushing their service programs such as the Home Run for Hunger, which has been collecting food items for local pantries for more than 12 years. “Paint the Park Pink” night each season at Fleming has raised more than $4,000 each year for more than a decade for women who cannot afford mammograms or treatment for breast cancer in Wilson. There is also the Books & Baseball Reading program for more than a dozen years as well as the Salute to Service program that includes a high school scholarship program and an on-field enlistment ceremony for military inductees.
The Tobs also conduct baseball equipment and toy drives in the offseason as well as a Christmas tree giveaway for needy families.
The team has hosted college baseball games in the late winter/early spring for teams from cold-weather states to stop and play in Wilson as well as the Conference Carolinas tournament and numerous high school playoff games across several associations.
“That institutional growth has really kind of blossomed our organization and that’s why we’ve grown so much,” Suire said. “I mean, the Tobs were in trouble 13 years ago and we came in with a vision and ramped up this organization by really reaching out or into the community in developing our people. And then of course, we pioneered with the great leadership of (former general manager) Thomas Webb with the Beer and BBQ Festival and, of course, the Paint the Park Pink night. I mean, all of these philanthropic programs have become institutions in Wilson and oh, by the way, they’ve created a lot of income for some of these research organizations. And then our (Home Run for Hunger) is just tremendous how it fills the food banks for the local people. And those are the things that we do so well. And that’s why I think that the next two years our success can continue to grow.
“But remember, our longevity at Fleming Stadium is completely dependent upon the views and the wishes of the city council. In other words, do they want this grassroots community program to continue? Because they’re the ones who hold the lease. We only have a two-year lease left, so it’s not even up to us.”
Suire hopes that the Tobs’ popularity in the community will continue as the new stadium rises from the ground for the Mudcats’ arrival in just two years.
Japan National University baseball team fans show their support during an exhibition game against the Wilson Tobs on Wednesday, July 5, at Fleming Stadium. Sheldon Vick | Special to the Times
“We’ve had so much support from our fans for us staying in Wilson,” he said. “It’s really a grassroots effort. I can’t tell you the number of letters that I read from fans that eventually, of course, matriculated to the city council, to the city administration and just people coming up with their own memories of how special Wilson is. Despite the fact that we live in a society where change is constant, and we all have to deal with that, our comfort level in our life is always rooted in what we know and what makes us feel good. And that has been Fleming Stadium and it’s a rite of passage for people in Wilson. I mean, it really is.”
DIAMOND SUCCESS
On the field, the Tobs are still seeking their first Petitt Cup championship but did reach the championship series in 2022 when they lost to the Savannah Bananas, who have since left the CPL. But the team has been a playoff contender every year, even in 2023 when a late skid kept them out of the postseason.
“We’ve had a tremendously successful four years when you think about it,” Suire said. “I mean, look, we persevered through a pandemic. We produced a first-round draft pick out of a pandemic in Trey Sweeney, who was just traded to the Dodgers. In 2022 we had a CPL runner-up finish, had tremendous attendance that summer, tremendous growth in our fall baseball league and then last year, we get four players who are on the All-CPL team. We have the pitcher of the year in Trent Harris, and oh, by the way, one of the Tobs from late 2018, Brenton Doyle, wins the Gold Glove for the Colorado Rockies. We are rolling. Our energy right now in the CPL, the totality of our organization, not just the product of the field from May 25 to August, we are rolling and we are head and shoulders above anybody in this league and it is a tribute to the people of Wilson and to our staff.”
Suire pointed out that while the Brewers will bring in players from around and outside the country to play for their farm team in Wilson, the Tobs often have players from here on the roster, some of which grew up playing in the Tobs Fall League or in one of their spring Tobs Classics.
“I want these young people to know that when they grow up and they come through this great youth program, right, that they can continue to play, continue to participate in a program that is created a great pipeline for local kids to eventually go and play in college. I mean, look at the number of local people who’ve played for the Tobs,” he said.
Suire noted the Tobs’ great relationships with Barton College and their Fleming co-tenants, the North Carolina Baseball Museum – not to mention the City of Wilson – as being integral to the team’s success in Wilson. Now, he just hopes that success will be able to continue.
Wilson Tobs president Greg Suire, left, leads the charge as the Tobs staff rushes to put the tarp on the field during a storm at Fleming Stadium during the 2011 CPL All-Star Game . Times file photo
“We have had a tremendous relationship with the City of Wilson. We really have!” Suire said. “It’s been very open communication lines. And that’s what I think has been probably the more difficult headwinds to endure is, hey, all this success and all this vision that we’ve had, that’s all come to fruition. What’s next?”
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