A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. That I-10 freeway was often used by baseball players looking to jump from their high school ranks to a major league opportunity. This baseball hopeful went from his high school to Riverside to faraway Atlanta to nearby Anaheim, home of the Angels. – Obrey Brown
Tommy Hanson struck high during his third league season, 2011, with those Atlanta Braves. Pitching numbers were 11 wins, 7 losses, a 3.60 ERA over 22 games, tossing pitches to All-Star catcher Brian McCann, picking off with throws to another All-Star, first baseman Freddie Freeman, plus future Hall of Fame third baseman Chipper Jones.
Try to figure how many of Hanson’s 11 triumphs were saved by closer Craig Kimball, who had 46 saves, including a few for starters like Tim Hudson’s 16 victories.
You figure there were plenty of Redlands East Valley High School connected folks checking out Hanson, that 2004 graduate. Don’t forget, he was an original catcher, then a first baseman.
REV’s baseball program produced that solid major leaguer. From the mound. To a strong university. Originally, he wound up 11-4 with a 2.89 ERA during his 2009 rookie season pitching for the Braves.
Hanson, 49-35, 3.85 lifetime, spent five seasons in the majors, mostly with Atlanta, plus a season with the Angels. He concluded his 2006-2015 professional career — injuries, soreness, perhaps some other health problems — in the minors with San Francisco’s Class AAA team in Sacramento.
Tragically, he was struck down at age 29 when he died on November 9, 2015.
In 2005 after Atlanta grabbed him on that 22nd round, a 677th overall selection, he signed with the Braves. Hanson was pitching for dominant California junior college, Riverside City, that season. Dozens and dozens of baseball players have been taken out of RCC.
Tommy Hanson, an original Redlands East Valley right-handed pitcher, lifted himself into the major leagues from that Mentone city next to Redlands and Yucaipa, getting drafted by Atlanta from Riverside City College in 2005.
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Hanson was the first of REV’s growing list of professional baseball signees. There were a couple handfuls more that eventually joined him.
Hanson established himself as baseball’s top pitching prospect after he dominated as the 2008 MVP of the Arizona Fall League.
As that much-anticipated major league debut that following June there were four straight starts, including two straight against the Yankees and Red Sox at Turner Field.
After producing a 3.28 ERA over the 77 starts made during his first three Major League seasons, Hanson was hit by injuries— shoulder, plus a back ailment. There was another setback.
His younger brother died in 2013. Hanson was then with the Angels. He told reporters, “I was having mental issues with the death of my younger brother. I was just trying to get through it. I didn’t know how to handle it.
“That was the first time anything like that had ever happened to me. I didn’t know how to cope with it.”
In grieving his brother, Hanson left those Angels for three weeks. There were 15 appearances by his conclusion, his final major league work.
A SURPRISE CONCLUSION
It was a long way from REV, which is where Hanson had pitched brilliantly. What dropped feelings back home was simple and disruptive: That ex-Braves’ pitcher died, caused by delayed complications of cocaine and alcohol toxicity, according to an autopsy report. It was a Coweta County coroner in Georgia, Dr. Richard Hawk, who ruled that death as an accident, the cause being illicit cocaine use.
No one, absolutely no one, wanted to see this conclusion. Hanson was 29. At the beginning, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At the end, buried in Roswell, Georgia.
IT WAS HANSON THAT LED THOSE REV STEPS
Sure, sure, sure … there was more than a handful of other REV baseballers taken in the draft by various MLB teams – catcher Brett Martinez and outfielder Josh Cowles, both taken by the Angels, infielder Paul Eshlemen by the Brewers, plus Matt Andriese’s brother David, an outfielder taken by the Pirates out of UC Riverside.
Then there’s pitchers Justin Jacome by the Marlins, plus a pair taken by the Blue Jays, Jackson McClelland and Griffin Murphy.
Neither of those players ever made it to the big leagues.
Matt Andriese and Tyler Chatwood, both pitchers, came along at REV just a couple seasons following Hanson’s REV seasons, eventually winding up in MLB play.
For that 1997 first-ever school year, baseball beginning at REV in 1998, Hanson was the original star.
