Sept. 20, 2006: Tucson Sidewinders win franchise-record 98th game, Triple-A championship
The Tucson Sidewinders began the 2006 Pacific Coast League season 4-11 and without their manager. Expectations? Not much more than the previous season’s 68-76 club.
Manager Chip Hale opened the ’06 season with the parent Arizona Diamondbacks, filling in as third base coach while Carlos Tosca recovered from surgery.
When Hale returned to Tucson on May 2, the Sidewinders began a compelling march that would culminate in the greatest season in Tucson’s 43 PCL seasons.
They won a PCL division title at 91-53; no other Tucson team had won more than 87 games. Then the Sidewinders went 6-1 to win both rounds of the PCL playoffs and capped it by winning the 2006 Triple-A championship, beating the Toledo Mud Hens in the Bricktown Showdown in Oklahoma City.
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Overall, Tucson finished 98-54. The last minor-league team to win more games was the 1992 Class AA Greenville Braves.
“You look at the number of prospects, and it really was a situation of being flooded with all this talent,” D-backs farm director A.J. Hinch said. “And then you had veteran leaders helping the younger players along. This team really was the perfect balance of youth and experience.”
Of the 52 players who suited up for the Sidewinders, 23 also played for the Diamondbacks.
Eight players — shortstop Stephen Drew, center fielder Chris Young, right fielder Carlos Quentin, relievers Tony Peña and Doug Slaten, starter Enrique Gonzalez, catcher Miguel Montero and second baseman Alberto Callaspo — made their major-league debuts in ’06.
Callaspo was the organization’s minor-league Player of the Year, but it was a close call.
Sidewinders third baseman Brian Barden hit .298 with 16 homers and 98 RBIs. Left fielder Scott Hairston of Canyon del Oro High School hit .323 with 26 homers and 81 RBIs. First baseman Chris Carter hit .301 with 19 homers and 97 RBIs.
Even when the D-backs took a top prospect from the Sidewinders, the club kept winning.
Tucson’s roster, which underwent 101 transactions, was replenished by a combination of journeymen and Double-A prospects.
Micah Owings, the organization’s 2006 Pitcher of the Year, did not lose a Triple-A game after being promoted June 12, going 10-0.
Veteran Mike Bacsik, who signed as a free agent 10 days into the season, went 11-0 both as a starter and reliever.
The Sidewinders had 13 walk-off victories at Tucson Electric Park in just 53 home games.
“We’ve come back so many times,” said Hairston. “I can’t put into words how it feels as a player, being down 5-1 in the eighth and we never give up. That’s characteristic of a championship team.”
What wasn’t characteristic was that the Tucson audience didn’t fully grasp the Sidewinders championship season. Attendance was 271,698, which ranked 15th of 16 PCL clubs. The old Tucson Toros, based at Hi Corbett Field, drew 45,000 more fans during seasons in the 1990s.
Where are they now? Barden helped Team USA win the 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medal and completed his big-league career in 2010 after playing 119 games for four MLB teams. He is now an insurance executive in Scottsdale. Bacsik’s MLB career ended in 2007 after he infamously yielded Barry Bonds’ 756th career home run, breaking Hank Aaron’s long-standing record. Bacsik is now a sports-radio talk show host in Dallas.
How they did it: Right-hander Dustin Nippert had a career season, winning 13 games as the club’s top starter. He was soon promoted by the D-backs but had a journeyman-type MLB career, winning just 14 games in six seasons. He then signed to pitch in Korea, where he has flourished, winning 72 games in six years. He is still active at 35, with a 12-2 record through July 18.
