Yuma Times and Lethbridge Anthem

By Aron Rocke with Bud Hoffmann

Friday, August 7, 2009

Juárez and Ethleen Hoffmann had 7 children and a dream in the city of Lethbridge, Alberta.  North of the American border, life was hard for them when they got married.  Juárez was grunt worker in a drift mine and Ethleen supplemented his salary by working in a department store until they had children.  “I knew Bud was different from a young age,” said Ethleen in a recent interview.  “He was the youngest of his siblings to run and to learn to play sports.  From when he was about 6, he loved baseball.  He would play all day, and even when the other kids went inside he would throw against walls or backstops.  He is a gifted boy, to be certain, at that game.”  The third born child in this family of 7 would prove to them, and to Lethbridge, that Honor and Duty can be found in baseball, and that a promise is worth keeping.

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When the MLB broke up after numerous scams, caught cheaters and allegations of unfaithfulness among the higher ups, one young man sat and bemoaned his future.  When his phone buzzed and its ID said “Papa Hoffmann”, young Bud was hesitant to answer.  When he did, he tried to hide the sadness and disappointment in his voice.  But it was to no avail.  Juárez Hoffmann had been a drift miner in Lethbridge all of his life.  Of native Northern Peigan descent, Juárez had and knew his own hardships.  Having married an Anglo-Saxon in the tumultuous 1950s, Juárez had been in an extreme minority in the large city.  Working long hours in the mine to ensure that his family had their essential needs met, the father of Bud Hoffman had contracted Silicosis (a lung condition caused by over exposure to dust and airborne rock particles) when Bud was in his junior year of high school.

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That year, a high school junior and his father had a heart to heart that only fathers and sons can have.  Juárez told Bud, “Focus on your baseball.  My boy is going to be playing in the majors someday!!” a source close to the family said.  “It was a turning point for me,” said Bud.  “I was ready to give up the game and stay and support my sick father and the rest of my family.  But he told me to become the best player that I could.  He had to break me down until I promised to devote my time to the game.”  In his senior year of high school, Hoffmann was certainly putting up the numbers from the plate.  In his division, he was hitting an incredible .500, with an OBP of almost .800.  He was the exact kind of player that the Detroit Tigers Single-A program was looking for.  Upon graduation, Hoffmann signed on with the Tigers.  “I was just hoping to play well and advance.  I knew I had it in me, I knew I couldn’t let my family down, and I knew that I needed to advance quickly.  For my Dad.”

In 2005, AA player Bud Hoffmann was having trouble.  After the Major League All-Star break, he injured his ankle trying not to get picked off first base in a close game.  He was pulled from the game and it was determined that he had merely sprained, not broken, his ankle.  However, as Bud puts it, “It was my best season, I recall, and it [his ankle] wouldn’t stop bugging me.  About 6 weeks after the injury, I was still not allowed to work out with the team.  I visited my Dad back home, and he didn’t look at me the same.  I thought it was my ankle, but….”  As he slowly trails off, it’s no doubt that Hoffmann is looking back on the events of one of the most tumultuous years of his life.

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It was then that the senior Hoffmann revealed the bad news to Bud: his Silicosis had left him susceptible to Tuberculosis, which he had contracted.  The diagnosis had been long in coming, and by now it was looking like Juárez was not going to live very long.  “I remember that the antibiotics were wrecking his body.  They made him as miserable as the coughing did.  He again looked at me and told me to make it pro.”  Juárez still would not allow his son to give up on the dream they shared.  "He really put some confidence in me that day.  I was the only of his kids with a shot to make it pro in a sport, and he wanted to see that happen."

With the coming of the baseball season, young Bud began to make good on his promise.  He started on an incredible 12-12 hit streak, which included 2 extra-base hits, 5 steals and 6 RBI.  “It was then, in that 2006 season, that I got promoted to the AAA association.  I got to call home and announce some good news for once!”

That off season, Juárez temporarily stabilized.  Ethleen Hoffmann attributes this to, “God alone; He was with my family through some very difficult times.”  Bud spent all the time with his ailing Father he could, while his siblings worked.  “I felt guilty, but they wouldn’t hear it.  They knew what I needed to do, and they let me do it.  I couldn’t ask for a better or more supportive family.”  That late November, after a hearty thanksgiving dinner, with the MLB in obvious trouble, a phone call came to the Hoffmann house: Report to Detroit.  Meeting Dec. 7, 2006, with the manager and GM.

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The headlines varied, from city to city, town to town, ballpark to ballpark: The MLB was gone.  Done for.  The dubious “honor” was put on Mark Shapiro to announce (after this, interestingly enough, Shapiro fell off the grid and has not been heard from since).  To Bud Hoffmann, sitting on a suddenly lonely corner in Detroit, it was like his life had come down with it.  “Maybe I had overinvested.  I put it all on being able to play ball for my main source of money.  I had finally gotten a call that I had waited twenty-seven years for and the MLB chooses that day to go kaput.  My dad was back in Lethbridge, dying, my family was just trying to break even, and I was in Detroit with nothing to do.”

“So I sucked it up.  I decided to stay in Detroit for a while and see if anything good could come of it.  Being of a Christian background, I was praying so much I needed kneepads.  I was working two jobs through most of December when I heard some good news.”  That good news came from the brilliant mind of then “ordinary” John Rodriguez.  His plan?  Simple.  Give baseball a new face, and get America its pastime back.  “When the first draft notices came in, I was in a flurry.  I was running here, there, everywhere, trying to quit jobs and get enough money together to get to a tryout, trying to let Mom and Dad know what was going on.  It was crazy!”  Ethleen confirms that, “He called us one night, quite late, and was ecstatic and said a lot of words very fast.  I finally got him to slow down and enunciate, and he told me everything that had happened with Mr. Rodriguez and this ‘PEBA’ scheme of his.”  The family was soon summoned and waited in the Hoffmann house in Lethbridge to hear any news.  Says William Hoffman, Bud’s next older brother, “We were all waiting and just praying that something extraordinary would happen for Bud while Dad was still with us.  He had taken a turn for the worse in late December, and we still had no idea if this ‘PEBA’ league would be accepted in America and elsewhere.”

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January 2, 2007.  The PEBA is a reality, and a draft is in session.  “Round 2, Pick 22, 46^th overall Pick” scrolls onto the screen.  Laughing, Hoffmann states, “Those are some letters and numbers I will never forget.”  It is announced soon after: “With the 46^th overall pick in the inaugural PEBA draft, Yuma Selects Bud Hoffmann, of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.”

“I was stunned.  In my mind, there was only silence, only one thought, only one thing that I could focus on: I did it.  I kept my promise – if I could stay healthy until the season, that is.”  Hoffmann simply stood, silent tears on his face.  He knew that, many miles away, his family was celebrating even as he was.  “When we heard it, I had to rewind it on the DVR,” says Ethleen.  “We were all silent for a few moments, then, before long, Bud called and gave us the details of his contract.”

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Fast forward a few months.  The PEBA was in full swing.  Hoffmann had been a solid player in the Spring Training season, but now it was time to prove his worth.  It was May, and Juárez was in the hospital.  “He was in a bad way, but he insisted I keep playing.  I couldn’t tell him no.  Heck, my dad was the most forceful person I knew… but I also knew how much he loved me and wanted me to succeed.  He always would watch the games and tell anyone who would listen, ‘That’s my boy!  A force in baseball from Canada!’ and stuff like that.”  On May 27^th, the 27 year-old Hoffmann stepped to the plate against the Kalamazoo Badgers and made his dad proud one last time.  While Bud battled at the plate to go 5-5, Juárez battled for a few more hours.  After Hoffmann’s second at-bat, Juárez went unresponsive for several minutes and Ethleen was summoned.  When she arrived, Juárez stated, “I’m gonna watch my boy’s last at-bat this game,” in an almost reverent whisper.  They sat in the room, holding hands as their son hit 2 doubles, a homerun, batted in 2 RBI and scored 5 times.  “It was a career game,” Hoffmann states, somberly remembering that night.  “It was late when I was able to make the call, and by that time… he was gone.”  Juárez had died one hour after the game ended, telling Ethleen, William, and the rest of his family (7 children and 5 grandchildren), “That’s my boy… I love him, you tell him that.  I’m proud of what he’s done.”  His last words were then used to exhort his family to stay faithful to what they believed and to each other.

Bud called later, after the body was removed from the room.  “Hey, can I talk to dad?”  he said, oblivious to what had happened.  “No,” his Mother replied, “I’m sorry.”

“There was silence on the phone.  I was on speaker at their end, still in my locker, and I started crying.  Quietly, but it was just…..”

“He is a strong boy, and I know he didn’t want us to hear him cry, but it was good for all of us to be… there at that time,” said Ethleen.

“A few days later, we laid him to rest in the mining country that he had lived, worked and died in.  It was no small ceremony, and most of the ‘Dozers showed their support for my family.  Adormo, Kaufman, Lintell, Quiñones, Akiyama, (GM) Dobney and a few others actually went up with me to Canada to lay him to rest and make sure the family was well taken care of.  It was touching.”

“We had to show our support for him,” said Kaufman.  “Bud was always, and still is, a real [sic] respectful guy.  I’ve never heard him swear, he’s not gotten drunk, he stays clean from drugs and what-not.  I actually wanted to be there for him.

“I encouraged the guys to go with us.  I didn’t make it required, but so many showed up that it was like I had,” says Dobney, recalling the trip north.  “After the ceremony and burial, we all waited around to offer our condolences to the family in a more personal manner.  They were really touched by this, and when we told them that they had a free pass to any of our ballgames.  They [the Hoffmanns] are quite the close knit bunch.”

Sadly, there could be no Cinderella-esque cap to this story.  Less than two months later, Hoffmann hit the disabled list.  July 7^th, Bud tore a rib cage muscle and was done – for 7 months.  That season, Yuma went on to finish 67-95.  Bud has, as yet, not been able to win a championship in honor of his dad, though his picture does hang in the Yuma locker for professional baseball player #26, Bud Hoffmann.

“I guess, in the end, it did mean a lot to get to the majors.  He got to see me play there near the end, and it made him happy.  I wish he’d survived until I got hurt; I’d have spent every day with him.  As it was, I stayed with the family while I healed up and we got even closer.  We were thinking about him, but we also moved forward like he’d wanted.”  Hoffmann now has enough money to support his family in comfort and even started a fund for local miners by donating $4.75 million of his first year salary.

To end this story, we will leave you with this image.  There is a plaque erected outside of Lethbridge.  A large granite rock holds a large bronze square.  On one side of the inscription are crossed pickaxes; on the other a simply sketched Bulldozer.  The inscription reads: “In honor of the Lethbridge Miners Association and Union.  Donated for Juárez Hoffmann; by his son Bud; #26, Yuma Bulldozers, the PEBA; the Yuma Bulldozers and the Lethbridge City Injured Miners Fund.”

From Lethbridge, West Virginia, the PEBA headquarters and Yuma, Arizona, Aron Rocke reporting.