Events
Asian Heritage Night with the Pacifics Baseball Game
The Asian American Alliance of Marin (AAAM) is inviting the public to watch the San Rafael Pacific play against the Vallejo Admirals on 6:30 p.m., Friday August 9 at Albert Park, 155 Andersen Drive in downtown San Rafael. The gates will open at 5:30 p.m.
This will be the San Rafael Pacifics’ first Asian Heritage Night. Sonoma County Taiko will be performing.
A single game ticket is $15. Enter promo code AAAM and all fans will receive $3 off any general admission ticket! In addition, the Pacifics will donate half of the proceeds to AAAM for every ticket sold.
The Pacifics was created by major league baseball executive Mike Shapiro and investor Brian Clark in 2011 to play in the North American League. The Pacifics then won the championship in 2012.
Eugene Lupario and Shapiro, along with Steve Allen, Lupario’s business partner, bought out Pacifics’ majority owner Brian Clark to make the Pacifics a primarily Marin-owned group.
The new owner, Redwood Sports and Entertainment, created the current league, the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, an independent professional baseball circuit not affiliated with Major League Baseball. The Napa Silverados, Salinas Stockade, Sonoma Stompers, and the Vallejo Admirals also play in the league.
Sharpiro, Clark, co-owners Lupario and Allen, proposed to the City of San Rafael that Albert Field could be transformed into a minor league ballpark, and that San Rafael and the entire Marin County community would benefit from having a minor league baseball team as a part of its social fabric.
The proposal was unanimously approved by San Rafael’s Parks and Recreation department and then twice approved by the City Council.
On June 4, 2012, before a sold-out crowd at Albert Park, the first pitch was thrown and the San Rafael Pacifics were launched. The Pacifics won the 2012 North American League championship in its inaugural season.
In 2013, the Pacifics posted a league-best regular season record of 54-21 (.720), and won the newly formed Pacific Association’s Division Championship. They also won in 2014, 2015, and 2018.
In 2017, the Pacifics drew over 18,000 fans over their 39-game schedule, averaging over 450 fans per game played at Albert Park in downtown San Rafael.
Attorney Leslie Lava joined the San Rafael Pacifics Ownership Group.
The Pacifics, beginning in their seventh year in operation in 2018, were the league’s most successful team, having won three championships in the league’s first six years and each year supported by the league’s highest attendance.
The Pacifics established themselves in the local community for their engaging and unique family-oriented fan experience at their games, and for their commitment to community service; and was awarded in San Rafael’s 2015 “Large Business of the Year,” the 2015 “Spirit of Marin,” and as the 2017 Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s “Business Diversity Award” winner.
The Pacifics also reaches out to the community through school, senior center and hospital appearances, fund-raisers and awareness campaigns, and baseball clinic and equipment programs for economically disadvantaged kids.
In August 2018, the team was put up for sale, and in 2019, was sold to Gabriel Suarez who was drafted by the Montreal Expos in 2004. He retired in 2013 and began owning and operating minor league franchises.
Suarez hopes to continue with the success of the Pacifics. “I want people to remember the Pacifics. I want them to remember the team and what’s (on the field),” Suarez told the Marin IJ. “I want them … to think ‘The Pacifics were an awesome part of that, an awesome part of our trip here’ or ‘an awesome part of community’ if they live here.”
