Tolson's 21-seasons with the TOTS were remarkable

Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)

60-and-over baseball

The Tucson Old Timers started keeping yearly batting statistics in 2003. In January of 2020, Floyd Lance, 94, will officially begin his 18th year as the club's statistician.

He uses index cards and painstakingly keeps track of every players at bats, runs, hits and batting averages. Before 2003 and dating back to the club's formation back in 1968, the stats were handled differently, nothing like the process currently used by Lance.

It may be time for the TOTS  to modernize the process. But then again, no one wants to take over for Lance and begin figuring the stats for 40 to 50 players for all 52 weeks -- three games a week, month after month...year after year. The members of the TOTS would just as soon leave all the arithmetic to Lance and then let the club historian Dan Price turn the daily batting stats into interesting stories --- or at least yarns, allowing Price to turn a TOT into a Babe Ruth, or a Mickey Mantle or an A-Rod for the day.

The stats are no more than guidelines...or goals for a TOT to strive for. For instance, since 2003 there are around 25 players who have collected 1,000 hits on the club with the late Chico Bigham leading the way with 2,134 hits. That is a lot of hits and it looks like Chico's modern-day record could be broken by 2022.

Recently, the TOTS' Chairman of the Board Brad Tolson has come forward with a stat sheet of his own -- 21 years (1992-2012) of his own batting statistics. Tolson, 90, might be the only player from "the old days" who will ever display a document official enough to be used as a guideline for the TOTS' hitters to strive for.

In 21 seasons, Brad played in 2,143 games. He batted 6,355 times, scored 1,558 runs and collected 3,419 hits and maintained a career batting average of .538.

For all the 60-somethings out there on the TOTS. There's a new guideline for you to strive for.

Keep swinging!

Photo: Brad Tolson, the TOTS' Chairman of the Board.