How Dodgers’ new minor league team in Ontario came

You can say you’re building a ballpark, but the anticipation accelerates when the neighborhood sees what the ballpark may appear to be. For the town of Ontario and its architects, the rendering of its minor league ballpark included a team title.

A placeholder, that is. The new team house owners didn’t yet own the team. The title would come later. The Dodgers’ California League team wouldn’t transfer in until 2026.

On that drawing last 12 months: the Ontario Sky Mules, with a whimsical emblem of a grinning donkey carrying sun shades and flying a prop airplane. It was, frankly, superior.

It was the essence of the minor leagues. Don’t know what a sky mule is? Hardly anybody knew what a trash panda was, either, and the Trash Pandas are one of the hottest manufacturers in the minors.

This 12 months, the newly employed team workers dropped hints about the precise title, about the excitement in city. On the partitions of the team workplaces: “Cleared for Takeoff.” The metropolis referenced ballpark fan zones nicknamed “The Airfield” and “The Tarmac.”

And, just last week, the most important trace of all: the announcement of a naming rights deal with Ontario International Airport, close enough to the ballpark that you’ll have the option to see flights take off. The ballpark title: ONT Field (spell it out: O-N-T, like LAX).

On Thursday, eight months in advance of its first recreation, the team finally revealed its title: the Ontario Tower Buzzers.

It’s an homage to the film “Top Gun,” and to the defiant line uttered by the pilot performed by Tom Cruise: “It’s time to buzz the tower.” The Tower Buzzers’ mascot, a bee called Maverick, is called after Cruise’s character.

The team title balances heritage and whimsy. The metropolis is paying for the ballpark and needs to promote its airport, which was used as a World War II air base before reverting to civilian use and increasing into an Inland Empire transportation hub.

“We want to honor that legacy and have fun with it,” Tower Buzzers basic supervisor Allan Benavides said. “We found something we think is a fun minor league name, rather than just, say, Pilots or Aviators.”

The Aviators? Already in use in Las Vegas. The Pilots? The title of a failed California League team in Riverside (the faculty landlord wouldn’t permit beer gross sales, which is akin to a death sentence in the minor leagues).

The Tower Buzzers ought to fare better, in a ballpark that figures to be the second-best place to see a ballgame in Southern California, behind Petco Park and forward of Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium.

The metropolis’s latest value estimate is $120 million, for a Class A ballpark. The stadium that opened this 12 months for the Angels’ triple-A affiliate in Salt Lake City value $140 million and holds 8,000.

ONT Field is anticipated to maintain 6,500 — but with 3,200 seats between the foul poles, and the remaining wherever you like: in the outfield, on the grass, in picnic areas, on a playground, or in bars, golf equipment and suites, including a couple where you possibly can converse with the gamers.

There’s an ice cream parlor, a food corridor, and a bar formed like a baggage carousel. After a home run, the splash pad will erupt, and propellers will whirl in a bar. A runway will gentle up, and so will the antennas on the mascot.

The scoreboard is a hexagon, just just like the one at Dodger Stadium. Soon to seem: a mural of Fernando Valenzuela. All followers, not just those in the flamboyant seats, can watch gamers in the batting cage.

On the afternoon I visited, the temperature was 108 levels. The seating space is not going to have mist machines, as the Angels’ outdated California League stadium in Palm Springs did.

“It won’t be 108 at 7 o’clock,” Benavides said.

His audience: the “30-year-old moms” that he said control the calendar and the spending for the household.

“Not everybody is a baseball fan, but they want to have time,” he said. “They want to be away from their cellphones and the TV and be outside, not spend a ton of money, and not have to drive to L.A. or San Diego.”

Crews work on the construction of ONT Field in Ontario last month. The team last week announced a naming rights deal with Ontario International Airport. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The Angels’ California League affiliate will play in Rancho Cucamonga, eight miles away. Another California League team performs in San Bernardino, 25 miles away. The Angels themselves are 35 miles away.

“We’re going to fight for dollars, certainly, but I think our affiliation with the Dodgers is huge,” Benavides said. “They’re the hottest brand in baseball, depending on who you ask. I’m a Dodger fan, so I think they are.

“And I think this will be the nicest minor league stadium in the country, regardless of classification.”

If the Tower Buzzers don’t win that struggle for {dollars}, Ontario’s investment in the ballpark may prove to be a poor one.

The ballpark is the anchor of what the town is modestly calling the Ontario Sports Empire, a 200-acre facility for training and competitors billed by the town as the “largest sports complex of its kind west of the Rocky Mountains.”

There completely is a market for sports activities tourism, for all those youngsters and all their mother and father shuttling to weekend tournaments in baseball, softball, soccer, soccer, tennis and more. But that market will be tapped without a nine-figure investment in a minor league ballpark. (The naming rights funds come from airport revenues, not metropolis taxpayers; the airport is run collectively by the town and San Bernardino County.)

A rendering of ONT Field, set to open in 2026.

(Courtesy of City of Ontario)

That ballpark investment is more about a local leisure option for residents, with so many houses in the pipeline that the population may double from close to 200,000 to about 400,000 within 20 years. The NHL’s Kings already have a minor league affiliate taking part in in the town’s enviornment, and metropolis officers plan for eating places, inns and outlets to encompass the ballpark and sports activities complicated.

Dan Bell, a metropolis spokesman, said Ontario is including about 1,200 new houses every 12 months.

“And they’re reasonable,” Bell said. “You can’t afford the L.A. market anymore.”

On Thursday, at the second the team announced the Tower Buzzers title, the team merchandise went on sale. The home jerseys say Buzzers.

So is it Buzzers or Tower Buzzers? It’s like Blazers or Trail Blazers.

“We’ll let fans decide,” Benavides said.

I still puzzled about the homage. When the Tower Buzzers take the sphere next 12 months, “Top Gun” will flip 40. To a fan of a sure age, the reference is clear. It can be like opening a pizza supply service and calling it Spicoli’s.

To a youthful technology, “Top Gun” may imply a clean stare. No worries, Benavides said. You’ll have the option to get pleasure from a evening at the ballpark all the same.

“We’re not going to 100% lean into that film,” he said. “This isn’t going to be a ‘Top Gun’ museum.”

Well, then, Tower Buzzers: You are cleared for takeoff.