Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)
60-and-over baseball
It takes a good poke by a 60-something ball player to knock the ball over the fence -- 300 feet away from home plate to left, to center and to right field. The TOTS have been around since 1968 and last week the current players on the club opened the organization's 55th season.
Thunder Tim Tolson, who turns 70 in August of 2022, has been a member of the TOTS since 2011, and was the organization's home run king for six years (2011-16).
Not any longer!
Tolson has hit 69 home runs and coupled with his father, Brad, who played for the organization for over 20 years (1991-2011), the "awesome twosome" have combined for 92 home runs -- a father-son TOTS' record unlikely to ever be broken.
"My father (shown below) hit 23 homers between 1992 and 1999," says the younger Tolson, who is in his 12th season with the TOTS.
Surprisingly, there is a current TOT that has passed both Tolson boys!
Reed Palmer, 65, burst on to the scene at Udall Park in 2016 and quietly hit five home runs. Palmer -- a lefty like the "Tolson Boys" -- then hit 21 in 2017, 30 in 2018, 17 in 2019, 10 in 2020 and another 11 in 2021 for a grand total of 94 home runs.
Palmer (left photo) is the tallest of the current TOTS. At 6-6, the tall lefty has been chipping the bark off the old trees that sit beyond the right field fence for six years now and chances are he has set his sights on surpassing the 100-career homer mark by the summer.
The records show the TOTS' trio of home run hitters collected all their homers when they were, or are, in their "prime" with the organization. Brad Tolson hit his 23 bangers between the age of 62 to 68, Tim hit his 69 homers while in his 60s (the age of 70 is just months away!) and Palmer is still banging away and will not reach 70 until 2026!
What a young whippersnapper!
As for the TOTS' members over the age of 70, the Udall fence seems more like 500 feet away.
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