By Gary Rotto
- Gary Rotto
SAN DIEGO — If you even casually follow sports in San Diego, you know the name Trevor Hoffman. Along with Tony Gwynn, Trevor has been one of the faces of the San Diego Padres. Sunday, one of the great personalities of San Diego was honored at Petco Park. He forever impacted baseball not only with his success as relief pitcher, but also for energizing the crowd with Trevor Time – that occasion when just before coming into a balll game, the speakers intone the song Hells Bells and Trevor jogged to the mound from the bullpen behind the center field fence. He was the first relief pitcher to have a theme. Now most have a song which accompanies their entry into a close baseball game
Hoffman was honored not only for his sporting success but also for his role in the community. “You are revered as not only a great teammate, but also a great person,” stated Ted Leitner, the master of ceremonies and one of the broadcast voices for the Padres. Leitner could have easily thrown in the word mensch as Hoffman contributed time and energy to the San Diego Jewish community.
Since his father, Ed Hoffman, served as US Marine and was part of the landing party at Iwo Jima, Trevor purchased blocks of tickets to distribute to active duty Marines for almost every Sunday home game during his career. As a teammate, we was known for taking new pitchers under his wing, mentoring them, being an example for them. And he is known for community service in San Diego.
Back in February of 2006, the San Diego Jewish Academy completed a major expansion of its athletic fields. I was fortunate to serve as the founding president of the athletic booster club and helped to plan a grand opening of the fields. True to his community mindedness, Trevor Hoffman agreed to be our surprise guest. Other than catching a foul ball, that little boy or girl in all of us would love to be either the broadcaster or the public
address announcer at a baseball game. Well, on that day, I had the distinct pleasure of playing the role of public address announcer. While the
program noted that I was to provide remarks, the reality was that soon after I approached the microphone, Hells Bells was heard on over the loudspeaker,
and I intoned, “coming in from the bullpen, number 51, Tre-vor Hoff-man”. The place went nuts as Trevor jogged in from way beyond the stands
towards the stage. I felt like I had died and gone to baseball heaven.
The Doshay Family has been stronger supporters of SDJA over the years and have had a special relationship with Trevor, so it was only appropriate that the first pitch thrown on the new field was from T. Hoffman to M. Doshay – Max Doshay that is, then a senior pitcher for the SDJA Lions baseball team.
But to understand Trevor the man in the community, you have to meet him or see him just out and about. When my daughter was 7, we happen to drive through the Piazza Carmel, the local shopping center north of state route 56 off of Carmel Creek Road. If you’ve been to that shopping center, you know that there are many, many speed bumps. So as we slowly drove along on a weekday afternoon, I spotted a person with wavy light brown hair in a very nice warm-up
suit walking with a coffee. He was walking parallel to us as we went over bump after bump. I asked my daughter, who was in the back seat, if that looked like
Trevor Hoffman? She thought so, I wasn’t sure and all of a sudden, he looks over and waves at Kelila. He noticed that a kid was looking his way and
just wanted to acknowledge her with a friendly wave.
That’s what a pro’s pro does – not only goes about his job with pride, but cares about others and the community. And in many ways, touches us with very simple
gestures. Congratulations, Number 51.
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Rotto is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted at gary.rotto@sdjewishworld.com