Controversy has erupted over the perception that Ontario officials late last month opted to name the minor league baseball team that will play out of a soon-to-be built municipal baseball stadium on the south side of the city in a way that is intended to enhance revenue by appealing to marijuana smokers and beer drinkers in an effort to get them to attend ball games.
Alcohol sales are to take place at the stadium and there is word, undenied by city officials, that the city is willing to allow marijuana use in the stands and bleachers as well within the stadium’s luxury boxes.
The City of Ontario scored a coup by convincing the Los Angeles Dodgers to allow it to host a newly created Class A farm club within the city. The team is to play at what is to succeed Jay Littleton Field, destroyed in a 2024 fire, as the city’s landmark ballpark, now under construction at its proposed Ontario Sports empire, a 200-acre facility for training and competition billed as being the “largest sports complex of its kind west of the Rocky Mountains.”
The cost of constructing the baseball stadium, which is to have a spectator capacity of 6,000, is estimated at $100 million, representing over 83 percent of the overall cost of the entire sports complex.
City officials believe the Ontario Sports empire will become more iconic than any of its other aspects or amenities, including Ontario Airport, the Ontario Mills mall, Euclid Avenue or its historic downtown.
The facility is scheduled to open in 2026.
Instead of allowing the Dodgers or the California League, inwhich the team is to compete, to name the team, the city initially said it was going to hold a contest in which residents could suggest a name for the team and then conduct a poll to choose it. That fell to the wayside when the city sold the naming rights for a yet-undisclosed sum to the Ontario International Airport Authority.
Thereafter, that entity carried out a closed door, in-camera, secretive executive discussion and came up with an aviation related name, although for many that was not clear. The name is to be the Ontario Tower Buzzers.
For many, that sobriquet was idiosyncratic to the point of being intelligible. It involves an allusion or reference to the 1986 movie “Top Gun.” The source for the name is part of the dialogue of the character played by Tom Cruise, maverick, in which he says, “It’s time to buzz the tower.”
Upon hearing the name for the first time, few understood the allusion. Indeed, a good number of people associated “buzzers” to mean those who, in slang parlance, “get a buzz,” i.e., become slightly intoxicated by smoking some marijuana or drinking a couple of beers.
Many people, in particular that part of the population born since the 1980s or even some born in the 1980s or before, have not seen the movie Top Gun, have no knowledge regarding the movie or do not remember the line if they have seen the movie. Adding to the confusion is that the team mascot is to be named Maverick and will exist in the form of a bee, which is supposed to buzz.
It is said that members of the Ontario International Airport Authority, who include President Alan Wapner and board members/commissioners Curt Hagman, Jim Bowman, Ron Loveridge and Julia Gouw, considered and rejected The Jets, The Airplanes, The Aeroplanes, The Top Guns, The Airfield and The Tarmac before settling on The Buzzers.
Some Ontario residents, inspired by the earlier report that a naming contest was being held, and hearing that the name buzzers was being considered, came forward with some competing suggestions of their own. One, who had misheard buzzers as buzzards, countered with “The Vultures.” Some others sought to get into the spirit by suggesting “The Stoners” and “Las Cucarachas.”
The last two names suggested were made after someone observed that “The Buzzers” was perceived by some to be a reference paying homage to the team’s fans, who would be too stoned to play on the Ontario Sports Empire’ s athletic fields as in the song lyrics, “La Cucaracha no puede caminar, porque no tiene, porque te falta, marihuana que fumar.
It was pointed out that the president of the Ontario International Airport Authority Board of Directors is Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner. Wapner for 15 years, ten months and two days was employed as a police officer in Ontario. It is estimated that, given the 1982 to 1998 era that he was involved in law enforcement, he spent nearly 15 percent of his time involved in cases that either directly or indirectly involved marijuana, which was then illegal. At that time, marijuana possession, use and traficking involved both misdemeanor and felony charges. For that reason, some found curious that Wapner would be willing to use the double entendre “Buzzer” as the team name, given that one of those meanings is aimed at encouraging marijuana use.
One response to this was that people should leave Wapner alone, as he has not been employed in law enforcement for over a quarter of a century and that society has moved on and has deemed recreational marijuana use to be socially and legally acceptable. As an adult in his late 60s, he very possibly could be putting marijuana to some personal medical use, it was pointed out, and he is at liberty to use the substance recreationally as well. It is the 21st Century and people, it was suggested, should loosen up, perhaps by going to a Buzzers ball game at the Ontario Sports Empire Stadium come 2026 and lighting up a joint or washing down a couple of brews.
According to Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, city officials have no power to rescind the Buzzers team name choice now that the California League and the Dodgers have accepted it.