Lodi’s baseball community reacts.
While namesake Zupo is remembered, high school teams make alternate plans
As crews take to Tony Zupo Field to clean up from Sunday’s fire that destroyed the stadium’s main grandstand and press box, a worker may find a lone baseball sitting in the grass.
That’s not too unusual; it is a baseball field, after all. But this baseball has special meaning to a few members of Lodi’s baseball scene.
As news spread among the baseball community late Sunday and early Monday that part of Zupo Field had been destroyed, some former ball players brought up memories not of Tony Zupo the field, but instead of Tony Zupo the person.
So when John Nilmeyer, who played for Zupo on the Guild Wines baseball team, arrived at the locked gates on Monday to assess the damage with others who played for the man, the first thing he noticed was that the plaque honoring his mentor was still intact.
“I went over there this afternoon and looked at it. It’s a disaster,” Nilmeyer said. “First thing I looked at is the plaque.”
Then Nilmeyer and his old teammates and friends, after trading stories about their time roaming the grass of the field, scrawled their signatures on the ball, and wrote “R.I.P. Tony Zupo, thanks for the memories” and threw it over the locked gate, past the damaged grandstand with charred steel girders still silently standing watch, and onto the field.
“All the games and so-on we played there, to me it’s pretty important they get it to playing baseball again,” Nilmeyer said. “It pretty much needed a facelift anyway, as everybody knew.”
Nilmeyer first stepped onto Zupo Field, then known as Lawrence Park, as a member of the Stagg High baseball team in 1964. Later, after playing for Stagg with the Guild Wines baseball team, he took over its management after Zupo’s death in 1986.
“When I was playing high school and Legion ball, we used to really look forward to coming to Lodi to play,” Nilmeyer said. “For me it was a real privilege to play on a park like that.”
Another Stockton native who spent years of his life at Zupo Field is Paul Lovotti. Like Nilmeyer, Lovotti first came to Zupo Field to sit in the visitors’ dugout as a member of Franklin High’s baseball team in 1965 and 66.
“At that time, it really felt like we were coming to a bigleague ballpark,” Lovotti said. “It was like, ‘Hey, this is pretty cool.’ It’s not like your typical field that you see around.”
Lovotti, who went on to coach the Tokay High team for 29 years, starting in 1977, was shocked to hear about the fire.
“That’s a shame. We had some real fun times there, and I know the people enjoy going to that ballpark. It’s a real cozy ballpark,” Lovotti said. “I know we had a lot of good times. I played many, many games there, and it’s a really nice place to play. It was probably one of my favorite ballparks in the entire area.”
Probably Lovotti’s fiercest rival for those games at Lawrence Park was Don Rostomily, who started coaching the Lodi varsity team the same year. Rostomily played at the park as a high school player for the Flames, and also as an American Legion player, first trotting onto the field as a sophomore in 1966.
“I have memories of watching Lodi Legions play there when I was a young kid,” Rostomily said. “Also the years the Cal League was there, there was some times the Cal League team, the Dodgers or Orioles or A’s, whatever team it was at the time, they’d be warming up on the foul lines waiting for us to finish our games so they could start batting practice.”
Throughout Lodi’s baseball community, the reaction has been the same at the news of the damage.
“It’s pretty emotional and sad,” Rostomily said. “I drove by there last night after I heard about it.”
Nilmeyer was the one who pushed to name the stadium after Zupo. When his mentor was ailing, Nilmeyer went to the Lodi City Council with the request.
“You knew the outcome wasn’t going to be good, and I went to the city council and asked them to change the name to Tony Zupo Field. It was Lawrence Park, and I had to get permission from the Lawrence family,” Nilmeyer said. “It was just about two or three days that Tony passed away, they approved it, and I’m not sure that he knew. Maybe Ed DeBenedetti went and told him. It was a matter of hours or days.”
All of the former players and coaches have one thing in mind now — to see the stadium rise from the ashes like a phoenix to host exciting ballgames once again.
“It’s such an iconic venue, not just for Lodi but for the whole area,” Rostomily said. “They’ve had CIF championships there, and there’s guys I’ve shot some emails to in the area who have memories of playing or coaching there, and we’d love to see a comeback.”
Added Nilmeyer, “It definitely needs to come alive again. I hope someone’s able to resur
rect the thing in a usable form. Hey, it’s been around for a long time, and it’s one of the oldest remaining ballparks in California. How many are still around from 1924 or ’26 or whatever? Not too many. It definitely needs an update.”
Planning for the near future
In five months, the high school baseball season officially begins in the Sac-Joaquin Section.
Lodi and Tokay’s baseball teams will have to figure out if Zupo Field will be available. Both programs are moving forward with Plan B.
After hearing about the fire, Lodi High baseball head coach Hobie Schultz wanted to take action.
“The first thing in my mind is I wanted to get over there and take a look, but they (Lodi Police and Lodi Fire departments) had everything blocked off,” Schultz said. “I just wanted to see what the actual damage was.”
On late Monday afternoon, Schultz had a chance to assess the damage.
“The main grandstands are done,” Schultz said. “From the looks of it, you’ll have to tear everything down and start from scratch.”
Schultz said that the Flames’ 2020 preseason schedule is done, and that includes some games that Zupo would have accommodated.
“We were going to have several night games at Zupo (next year); we were going to play some doubleheaders on Friday nights,” Schultz said. “That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.”
Schultz’s option (Plan B), is play home games at the Flames’ on-campus field, which is located on the southwest part of the campus that runs in the eastwest direction of Lodi Avenue. Schultz said that his 2019 squad played some home games at the field last spring.
“That’s definitely an option,” Schultz said. “We’ve played there in the past. I would say that would be our No. 1 option for the varsity games.”
The school’s junior varsity and freshmen squads have also played their home games at the on-campus field over the years.
“We can actually play both games – both JV and varsity – on our field at Lodi High,” Schultz said.
But if Schultz’s 2020 team plays its home games at the oncampus field, the Lodi junior varsity baseball games would have to start in the early afternoon, followed by the varsity team. Another option is that the Lodi JV and freshmen baseball teams play their home games at another field in the city of Lodi. The on-campus field does not have stadium lights like Zupo Field does.
Both Lodi and Tokay baseball programs do not pay to use Zupo Field because of the joint use agreement between the two schools and with the city of Lodi, Tokay High Athletic Director Michael Holst said.
Holst said one of his assistant coaches Collin Rhoads called him Sunday afternoon after Rhoads saw the fire.
“He happen to be driving by,” said Holst of Rhoads’ trek of Zupo Field.
Holst thought that maybe the fire was a small one.
“Obviously, it was a little bigger than what I thought might be,” Holst said.
Holst, too, is already looking at options for the 2020 Tokay High baseball team in case Zupo Field is not ready in five months.
One is playing at Kofu Park, where Babe Ruth baseball teams have played over the years. Holst said that Tokay played its home games at the park until the mid-2000s, and then shifted to Zupo Field. The Sac-Joaquin Section also hosted baseball playoff games at park during the 2000s.
“We’ve started to talk on-site about some contingency plans with the assumption that it’s not ready,” said Holst of Zupo Field. “We used to do that, but it hasn’t been done in a while. That is a possibility.”
Kofu Park, which the city of Lodi operates, does have stadium lights. It also has a concession stand and grandstands.
Another option for the Tigers is playing at their home games at Billy Hebert Field in Stockton.
The Tokay junior varsity and freshmen baseball teams could play their home games at the school’s on-campus field, Holst said.
Holst said at some point Tokay will have to make a decision as to where to play its home games next spring.
“There’s really not a ton of options,” Holst said.
The Sac-Joaquin Section has hosted many baseball title games since the late 1990s. But Will DeBoard, the assistant commissioner, said that the section would also be weighing its options in terms of hosting the playoffs next May.
“It’s a landmark in the city of Lodi,” DeBoard said. “It’s just sad and unfortunate that (the fire) happened.”
DeBoard said that the section has game plans to play the playoff games at Zupo Field next spring. But like Lodi and Tokay, the section will see what the city’s actin toward repairs at the field.
“We use four, five sites for all of our baseball semifinals and championships, and Zupo Field has always been in it,” DeBoard said.