The independent Sonoma Stompers baseball club has been purchased by local food and wine entrepreneur Jon Sebastiani.
Sebastiani, 45, founder of Krave Jerky and Sonoma Brands, bought the club from Eric and Lani Gullotta. The price was not disclosed. The Gullottas bought the three-year-old team in 2015.
The Stompers are one of four teams in the Pacific Association Professional Baseball Clubs and were league champs last season.
Sebastiani, formerly the managing partner of Wines.com and the president of Viansa Winery, said his latest acquisition reaffirms his commitment to the Sonoma area and the preservation of the area’s strong tourism, family values and traditions.
“I am very proud to call Sonoma my hometown; a region so rich is culture and tradition,” he said in a statement announcing the purchase.
“I am thrilled to continue the growth of the Sonoma Stompers organization by elevating fan experiences and making the club an even larger part of the fabric of our community.”
The Stompers have attracted national attention since 2015, when they signed the first openly gay professional baseball player in 2015 and the first female players in 2016.
Sebastiani said he obsessively collected baseball cards as a youth — cards he says he still has today — and baseball was his favorite sport growing up.
“I played all through school, on the varsity in high school and considered playing in college,” he said. “I am a huge fan of the game.”
The team has had some creative and popular promotions, including in 2014, the year the team began, having former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos left-handed pitcher, Bill “Spaceman” Lee threw for the Stompers, becoming the oldest player to win a professional baseball game.
Former A’s star Jose Canseco’s appearances were fan favorites as well.
Three women played for the Stompers last year, a move made possible in part from a sponsorship with Francis Ford Coppola’s Virginia Dare Winery in Geyserville.
More creative promotions likely will be rolled out this coming season to attract fans to the stadium, Sebastiani said.
“We’re coming up with creative ways that we can benefit the community and make the games really fun,” he said. “The most important thing is that the Stompers be a vehicle for wholesome family entertainment.”
For a man who sold his Krave jerky brand to the Hershey Company last year for about $220 million, a small town independent baseball club isn’t a profit venture.
“This isn’t a typical business transaction,” he said. “There’s no real money to be made here. My goal is for sponsors and ticket sales to cover our costs and to give away the rest.”
He has assembled an advisory board of locals with a passion for baseball, including parents and community leaders, to brainstorm ideas for fun fan experiences.
They will also be able to sample an array of food choices at the games, including his Sonoma Brands and Krave products and those of other sponsors, as well as wine from Coppola’s Virginia Dare.
Business and baseball operations will remain solely in the hands of general manager Theo Fightmaster.
Next year, the Pacific league hopes to welcome a fifth team based out of Napa.
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