TOTS 53rd season ends this week

 Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)

60-and-over baseball

The TOTS will finish off its 53rd season this week at Udall Park.

On January 1, 2021 another season begins.

The year 2020 has been a tough one and we lost a couple of legends along the way with the loss of Jerry Smarik in March and Bobby Katz in October. We also gained three new players -- a trio of youngsters -- Mark Capley, 61, Rick Bitzer, 65, and Bobby Williams, 61.

The Tucson Old Timers keep on swinging. 

Remembering Jerry and Bobby --

Jerry Smarik passed away at the age of 88 on March 10, 2020. Jerry joined the TOTS in 1991 and was referred to as the 'iron man" on the club. After all, Jerry stepped to the plate more than 4,000 times with the organization and until 2015 rarely missed a game.

Smarik was born in Detroit and spent his childhood days playing baseball and taking in games at Briggs Stadium. He remembers cleaning seats and then getting in free to the games. He said, in an interview in 2009: "We'd get there early and management would let us clean off the seats. We'd get a nickel, dime and sometimes a quarter for dusting off the seats. It was a heck of a deal, back then."

A former Navy man and retired postal carrier, Smarik was known for lighting up a stogie in the parking lot at Udall Park after every game and taking a puff or two.

Jerry and his wife, Sharon, had quite the journey together with 63 beautiful years together.

Rest in peace, Jerry.

We lost our Marine-- Captain Robert Edward Katz, USMC (retired) on October 29, 2020 at the age of 83. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Yolanda, who like so many wives of TOTS' members waited patiently year after year for her husband to come home from the ball park on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, quickly checking for cuts and bruises.

Bobby Katz was a member of the TOTS for 15 years and he grew up in Philadelphia. Like his buddy, Jerry Smarik, as a kid he'd grab sixty cents from his mom, hop on a trolley and head for Shribe Park and watch baseball greats like Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts play ball.

Rest in peace, Bobby.

Two TOTS Legends -- Jerry Smarik and Bobby Katz. We will miss them as we do all our teammates who are no longer in our dugout.