The Salt Lake Buzz may play in a state-of-the-art baseball stadium, but their owner, Joe Buzas, seems more like a throwback to earlier times.
Locals fans will get an up-close look at Buzas at Monday night's home opener vs. Edmonton. They'll find a man who at times appears to be a caricature of an old-time baseball-team owner, barking orders at his staff and then smiling playfully to let them know it was all a joke. He is a gruff, hard-edged grandfather-type with a tough shell and a soft heart.His frugality is legendary. Buzas, it seems, will do anything to save money. In Portland, he gathered baseballs at the end of every game - often paying for returned foul balls - and cleaned them by hand so they could be used again the next night.
"My epitaph will be `Here lies Joe Buzas. He cleaned a million baseballs,' " he laughs. Then, turning serious, he admits he now has carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve damage caused by years of scrubbing balls.
The irony is that the Beavers' (and now the Buzz's) parent team, the Minnesota Twins, provided the balls free.
In Portland, Buzas sometimes recruited early arriving fans to sell programs or to take tickets. He often did those jobs himself, playfully arguing with customers about players or strategy.
Few people ever get free tickets to see his teams play. When Buzas bought the Beavers, fans were used to the flamboyant David Hersh, an owner who had hustled, promoted and given away thousands of tickets.
Buzas came to town with a different philosophy. "I'd pull into a gas station and the attendants would say, `Hey, Joe, how about some free tickets?' I'd say, `Oh yeah? Are you going to give me a free tank of gas?' "
He admits he may encounter the same attitude in Salt Lake City, where fans have grown accustomed to special deals on Trappers tickets. But so far, plenty of fans appear willing to pay for tickets. Team officials report selling 4,200 season tickets, an unusually large amount for minor-league baseball.
Buzas describes his Portland years as frustrating, even though he says he made good money there.
"When I said I was leaving, no one ever said `What can we do to keep you?' "
Despite some tough years in Portland, Buzas is one of baseball's most successful owners.
Thirty-seven years ago he received his first team, in Allentown, Pa., for nothing. The former owner had gone bankrupt and the Eastern League turned to Buzas because of his reputation for hard work. Since then, he has owned dozens of teams, amassing a fortune along the way. He still owns another team in New Britain, Conn.
His teams generally do not set attendance records, although some have done comparatively well.
But his teams always earn a profit.
"The story has it that he saved the franchise here," said Chuck Domino, general manager of the Reading, Pa., Phillies, a team Buzas once owned. "He made money in Reading, but nobody came to the games, either."
Buzas once owned two teams at the same time in the Eastern League. Although this was a direct violation of baseball's rules, Buzas says he did it with the blessing of baseball's commissioner because of his reputation as a thrifty, honest man.
But there is much more to Buzas than thrift and honesty. The son of Hungarian immigrants, he grew up watching them struggle to run a grocery store in tiny Alpha, N.Y., during the Depression. His upbringing left him with two strong traits: frugality and the need to be in control.
He was frustrated on both counts in Portland.
For seven years, Buzas had a running feud with Portland's Metropolitan Exposition and Recreation Commission, the board that runs Civic Stadium, as well as some fine arts facilities and the Coliseum where the Trailblazers play basketball.
He was angry because the commission allowed fans to bring their own food into the stadium. Buzas received 50 percent of concession sales, but he said fans ended up buying nothing and stealing ketchup and napkins from the concession stands instead. Plus, the PA system was so bad the Beavers couldn't announce lucky numbers in their programs, he said.
And he doesn't like the fact the commission hired its own ushers, who, he said, were "sometimes very rude."
But Buzas promises things will be different in Salt Lake City. His contract requires him to pay $200,000 up front to Salt Lake City each year. Every dollar in ticket sales over that amount will belong to Buzas, and he also will receive half the parking revenues and all the money spent on food and souvenirs.
And fans won't be allowed to bring their own food.
"I'm going to go wild," he said. "I'm going to really have fun. I have a dream of opening day with little kids at first and third bases and the national anthem playing and fireworks going off. People laugh, but that's what I think baseball is all about."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Lots of teams
Here are the cities in which Joe Buzas had owned teams.
1957-60 Allentown, Pa.
1961 Johnstown, Pa.
1962 York, Pa.
1963-64 Reading, Pa.
1965-69 Pittsfield, Mass.
1967-68 Knoxville, Tenn.
1969-70 Savannah, Ga.
1970-74 Pawtucket, R.I.
1970-74 Winston-Salem, N.C.
1971 Sumter, S.C.
1973-82 Bristol, Conn.
1974-77 Elmira, N.Y.
1977-87 Reading, Pa.
1982-84 Peninsula, Pa.
1983-93 New Britain, Conn.
1986-93 Portland, Ore.
1989-90 Salinas, Calif.
1994- Salt Lake City, Utah