Prior to the beginning of the 2020 Pecos League season, Tucson manager Sean McNeill was confident he had a good team. Then the Saguaros lost their first game by the score of 16-5. Ooops.

It was time for a re-set, and McNeill didn’t waste any time.

“I got the guys together afterward,” McNeill said, “and told them ‘If you want to keep playing this way, OK. But I’ve got the phone numbers of a lot of other players, and I can start calling them now.’ We should be better than this.”

And Tucson got better immediately, going on an 11-game winning streak and never letting up. The Saguaros finished the truncated season with a 26-4 mark, 10.5 games ahead of second-place Salina, and then won the league title by defeating Salina in the championship round in late August.

First baseman Nathan Etheridge acknowledged that the opening-game loss was a wake-up call.

“That helped us come together,” he said. “Sean emphasized afterward that we all have to play at high levels because there are plenty of guys out there wanting opportunities to play.”

Tucson native Martin Alcoverde, the team’s closer, added, “Maybe that first loss was a good thing. We came back the next day against Roswell and won a close game. Then, after three or four wins, you could see the team starting to jell.”

As McNeill said, “It was a matter of focus. For some reason, we didn’t have it in that first game, but we came on strong afterward.”

Indeed.Tucson led the league in almost every team batting category. The Saguaros batted .338 as a team, had a 1.016 OPS and scored 341 runs – 74 more than the next best, Salina. They also led the league in bases on balls with 257.

Outfielder Thomas DeBonville led all hitters with a .455 average, while Etheridge was second with a .438 mark and outfielder Chris Caffrey fourth at .378. Caffrey had a 1.228 OPS, Etheridge a 1.226 mark and DeBonville a 1.193.

Even for a league that has traditionally been highlighted by offensive production, this year’s Tucson team stood out.

“We could hit,” McNeill acknowledged.

“DeBonville was our No. 2 hitter and batted above .500 much of the season. Etheridge and Caffrey really got hot toward the end of the season and carried that into the playoffs,” he added.

On the pitching side, the Saguaros had a 5.30 team ERA, which might seem high to most. Again, though, offense is king in the Pecos League, and that ERA far outshone the 6.52 mark posted by the next-best team, Roswell.

For McNeill, the groundwork for the 2020 season began in December when he was named the Tucson manager. He had previously managed Pecos League teams in Hollywood (2017), Ruidoso, NM (2018) and High Desert, CA (2019).

“(League Commissioner) Andrew (Dunn) had wanted me to manage one of the California teams, but I was hoping to manage either Roswell (NM) or Tucson,” McNeill said. “My girlfriend is from Tucson, and Tucson’s home field is at the high school she went to. Also, spring training for our teams the three previous years had been in Tucson, so I knew the fans and had a good relationship with them. So it was great when I got the job.”

Then the Covid-19 pandemic turned everything upside down. Eventually, the league decided to bring four Mountain Division teams to Houston and play all the games there. The season was compacted, running from the beginning of July to late August.

“I’d started contacting players in March,” McNeill said. “Then I had to call them all back when the league decided to play the games in Houston and see if they could still participate. Luckily, most of them could.”

Games were played during the days amid the often-suffocating summertime heat and humidity that is par for the course in Houston. Nonetheless, the Saguaros thrived.

DeBonville recalled that the team played its first game wearing black jerseys and pants. After that, they stopped wearing the black pants and wore the black jerseys only occasionally. Later, they got the team’s traditional green jerseys.

“That first game was rough - wearing black uniforms during a day game in that heat and humidity,” he said with a chuckle. “That was probably the hottest I’ve ever been. A few guys had enough trouble with the heat that they had to be taken out of the game.”

Alcoverde added, “It took me a couple of weeks to adjust to it. You really had to hydrate yourself well.”

“You don’t get used to it – you just prepare for it,” Caffrey said.

“It was something I’d never experienced,” McNeill acknowledged. “I’ve been in Tucson and in the Mojave Desert, but the heat there is dry. It can get hot and humid in New Jersey, where I grew up, but not like Houston. It might be 90 degrees by 9 in the morning, and the infield where we played had artificial turf, which made it hotter. But the guys did a great job of getting past that.”

And in blowing past the competition. McNeill thought the Saguaros had a good blend of veterans and rookies, with the veterans helping the younger players understand what it takes to be a pro and how to approach the various aspects of the game.

DeBonville said, “We had a number of first-year guys who didn’t really know what to expect going into the season. We’d scrimmaged a couple of the teams in spring training and thought we were pretty good. Then we had that big loss in the first game, and it made us work a lot harder.”

Caffrey added, “I thought from the beginning that we could have a good team, but it really sank in for me early in the season when we were behind in a couple of games and came back to win both of them. We were strong throughout the lineup; We didn’t give away any at bats.”

McNeill: “I didn’t expect us to be quite as good as we turned out to be, but the guys clicked. The team chemistry was good.”

So, what’s next?

Some of the players are going to off-season jobs. Some will play in fall leagues, after which they’ll work and prepare themselves for possible opportunities next season. For now, McNeill and his girlfriend are on a long driving vacation – back to Tucson and then up to Santa Fe and Trinidad, CO. Then back to their home in Philadelphia and McNeill’s job with FedEx in New Jersey.

“I’m lucky that they let me take summers off for baseball,” he said with a laugh.

He hopes to be back as Tucson manager next season.

“I would gladly accept that,” he said. “The goal would be to win another championship – this time in front of the Tucson fans.”

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