Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right.
Welcome to Hopscast, hosted by Jen Ellis, co hosted and produced by Sonny Fono. Each week we'll take you behind the scenes during the 2026 Hillsborough Hops baseball season.
Anything can happen in minor league baseball and we'll bring it all to you. From exclusive interviews with players and coaches to roster updates, player call ups and even the craziest plays of the week. It's all right here on Hopscast.
Hello.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Hey, we're back. Another week.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yes, another week, another series at the wonderful Hillsborough Ballpark. Hops Ballpark in Hillsboro, Oregon.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Hops Ballpark. We're here. The tarps are down but the rain has stopped. It looks like it's a cloudy, you know, it's wonderful weather while they were away and then they come back and
[00:00:49] Speaker A: it's raining again back. That's right.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: But yeah, we had the 4 and 2 home stand, 2 and 4 road trip. So with the sweep by by Eugene, we are three games under.500.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: So if we sweep Eugene, doesn't that mean that we'll be three games over. 500? Possibly. I can't really do that math.
Hey, you're on the mic. You're going to be doing.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to be PA announcer tonight and tomorrow night. This week we have tonight is the Jackie Robinson celebration which is always a good time at the ballpark. It's so amazing.
Lots of special guests. And then tomorrow is Scappoose High school takeover. And then Thursday is stem day. It's a day game at 11:05am Friday is the first fireworks of the year at the new ballpark. Saturday is wine and nine and Sunday is Sonia Dores. And we are going to be chatting with Yvonne Hernandez in just a little bit about the first Sonia Dores game.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: All right.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds great.
It's going to be a great week here at the ballpark. I'm only going to be here half the time. I've got a little bit of a road trip that I need to go on. But I'll be here for the first three games. I'm looking forward to it. And yeah, yeah, I'm going to be
[00:02:04] Speaker A: running the music board on Friday, Saturday and Sunday when you're out.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: So the Swiss army night I'll be doing everything.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: I'm the utility player in the PA booth, that's for sure.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Who's your favorite utility player?
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Well, I always liked Chad Pender from the A's.
He, I guess he would probably be con considered a utility player. He played a bunch of different positions But I think they always called him like third baseman or whatever. But he didn't ever really play third base. He played every base.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: How about Marco Scudero?
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Oh, yes, that's a good one too.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: That's a good point.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: That's a really good one.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Very. Just because it was so ridiculous, I'm gonna shout out Alexi Amarista.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Ah, that's a good one too.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: I. I think he might be the shortest player to ever play center field.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Oh really? How short was he?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Oh, like five six.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Well, I mean, Jose Baris. I mean, Jose. No, what's his name? Oh my God, I forgot his name. Jorge Barrosa.
Jorge Barrosa. He is 56 and he's been playing center field for the D backs. He. He was, he was here a couple years ago in Hillsboro. He's the guy that ran through the wall twice.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, we mentioned him in the first episode.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. That's right. Jorge Barrosa.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: He was listed at 58 when he was here.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Oh really?
He's 56 now with the abs.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: They have to measure everybody.
[00:03:26] Speaker D: So the jig is up.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Anyway, let's get to Yvonne.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: And we'll keep it moving.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds good.
All right. Hey, we're back for another episode of Hopscast. I'm Jen Ellis with my wonderful co host and producer, Sunny Fono. And we have a very special guest with us today, our good friend, Yvonne Hernandez. Yvonne, hello. Welcome. Welcome to our podcast. Thanks for being here.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Gracias, Gracias guys for inviting me. And it's an honor to be invited to just anywhere, you know, and anywhere, you know, I'm being a little presence. I love it. Thank you for having me.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Exactly. We are, we are, we are trying to chase you down and I know you're a very busy man. Can you tell us what you do here at the ballpark since we all wear multiple hats? What is your main job? What do you do here?
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Yes, of course, my, my title is director of community development, but I also help with the, with the team on the ground doing the on field activities. So I'm the lead for the H Crew. And so I'm one of the lead to the H Crew along with Train Jose.
I'm also one of the own field MCs and I am the third non official mascot of the Hop. So I'm always going everywhere with Barley Makanda to schools, festivals. So we have an inside joke that I'm the third mascot. So those are some of the hats we wear and then whatever, you know, and Other duties as assigned, as we say right here in minor league.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Just waiting around for the next assignment.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. No, super fun. I mean, there's no two days that are the same. And then I think that's what makes me really enjoy my job, because I don't like rich repetitiveness. So, yeah, I, I like to roll with the punches. I like the adrenaline. And I think this is why I, I, I like working in, in, in baseball.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: It's.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: There's a lot of things to, to
[00:05:13] Speaker A: do something different every day.
[00:05:14] Speaker C: Every single day.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Yes. Well, we are super excited because our first Sonia game is coming up this weekend. Can you tell us a little bit about what the theme is?
Our first game?
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Absolutely. So first game of the 2026 season is Dia de los Libros, Day of the Books. And the idea came from having a conversation with a local. Actually not local, but an author.
She came to the last game of the 2025 season in the old ballpark, and she reached out and said, hey, I'm an author. If there's a way to collab.
And I love having conversations on how to collaborate, how to build community, it's one of the beauties of my position that I don't have to build. Yes, we have to think about how to grow our audience, but I love collaboration. So if anybody, if you're listening to this and you're listening to me and you want to reach out, yeah, let's get together and have a conversation on how we can build community. So anyway, Arthur reaches out. We have a great conversation about how to collab. And out of a sudden, I came up with this idea, Dia de los Libros. So in Latin America, we celebrate Dia de los Ninos on April 30, day of the Children.
But, you know, we've done several Dia de los Ninos. And I said, let's do something different. And I said, Dia de los Libros. As I'm thinking about books. Libros means books in Spanish. So Dia de los Libros. And that's how the idea was born. And so we're going on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, April 26th. For the first game of the season. We'll have on right field, on the right field concourse, we'll have a lineup of local Latinx authors, you know, sharing their work.
We'll also have a couple of libraries sharing, you know, their bilingual books that they have. We'll have a group from Glencoe High School students doing some dance performance on the field. We'll also have, oh, this is one of my favorite.
So the hops. We also have kids books. If you didn't know you have children, you're out there if you want to write books for your children. We have four children's books. They are my friend barley series. And this fourth book is our first bilingual book. So coming up with dia de los libros, bilingual literacy, it's just like. It just feels. It's perfect. It's like our cherry on top. So we'll be showcasing our first book. Unfortunately, it won't be available until late May.
However, you know, people will know about the book, and we're very, very, very excited.
And then for every sonadores game, we try to make an authentic experience. It's not just a Latino night or it's just a sonia dores game. Right. The hops play as lo soniadores hus doro as part of this national campaign with minor league baseball. Then we have Spanish music going on, and we have the tacos on left field. Then we have the book fair, and then we have, you know, Ivan as an on field mc, you know, doing a lot of espanol on the field. So our idea of every senator's game is to have an authentic Latino experience and that you feel that you are probably in Puerto Rico in a baseball game or Mazatlan, Sinaloa, or, you know, la republica Dominicana, and you're just like, wow, this is. This is something else.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: So that's what we try to do. We break a pinata and we sing that take me out to the ball game bilingual.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: So it's a fiesta, the baseball, which.
Which, yeah, that's what we aim for. And we're very excited to have our first game here. New popa.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I know, we're so excited. Real quickly, before you go, can you tell us a little bit about the copa initiative throughout minor league baseball and how the hops got involved?
[00:08:42] Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. So let's put it like this.
Minor league baseball, Major league baseball, noticed that the Latino market is one of the youngest and fastest growing markets. And we like to share what we do. If we go to a fiesta, we're sharing what we're doing at that fiesta. We're going to a bar, we're sharing, we're buying for everybody. We're telling our friends. So it's just a great market, but also do we have a lot of Latino players on the field, so we want to see that community reflected in the sitting bowl. So minor league baseball said, well, let's start this copa de la diversion Fun Cub campaign. And the hub said, well, there's 25% of, you know, the population in Hillsborough, so it makes total sense for us to be part of this campaign. So we started in 2019 with Los Sonia Dores de Hillsboro, the dreamers. And this 2026 season. So it started in 2019 with Sonia Dores. We've been having Sonya Dores games ever since. And in 2022, our Sonya Dores brand won the best Latino brand in all minor league baseball, which I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of that.
That same year also, we also recorded over 20. I think it was 22% higher average attendance than the regular Hops game. So, I mean, that. That's one of the reasons we won. You know, we did really well. So ever since we've been having Sonia Dores games, other teams have rebranded to other names. And I mean, the Sonya Dores game name is very solid, very well accepted in the community.
And, I mean, I couldn't be more proud. I couldn't be more happy.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: Yes. This year we have seven Sonia Dores games, the first one being this Sunday. And, you know, every. Every game, we aim to have the most authentic Latino experience in baseball.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Awesome. That's so great. I. Honestly, you. You should be very proud of yourself. Like you said, you're very proud of the things that you've accomplished here and that have come to fruition and the things that will continue to happen. And we just really thank you so much for always being here for us and giving us a good time on the field. You know, you always bring a light into the room wherever you come. So thank you for coming in and chatting with us.
[00:10:44] Speaker C: Oh, it is a pleasure and an honor. I mean, the Hops have been a man, a tremendous organization to work for. Mike and Laura K. Like, they. They gave me what I call the freedom of creativity to do a lot of crazy ideas.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Real quick, before you go.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Why don't you tell everybody where you're from?
[00:10:59] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Because we didn't really cover that in the beginning of the interview.
Where did you come from?
And. And just really quickly, you know, your interest in baseball. And then if your hometown has a baseball team in the liga.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: Yes, of course. Well, so I am originally from the city of Tehuacan, state of Puebla. That's east of Mexico City. And I never played sports. So my official intro to sports was when I started working for the Hops. So I was born half raised in Mexico. I was brought to the States when I was 12.
And I mean, I went to school and always had two or three jobs, so there was not a lot of space for sports and just trying to work my way to a career. One day I was, I was introduced to the Hillsborough hops that I never heard of at the time. And I said, oh, there's a baseball team that's trying to reach out to the Latino community.
And I said, yeah, let's, let's apply for this job. Right? And the story how, you know, I started with Hobbs, it's a little crazy. It's a story for the next chapter, for another episode. We'll be back with that story.
But I'm from the state of Pueblo. I never play sports. And you know, it's funny how someone who I was never allowed to work sports now has been eight years in, you know, professional sports and for some reason, like my, my position doesn't really deals deal with the sport. I mean, I go to, I mean, if I go to, you know, elementary school assembly, they don't care about players names, they care about the mascots and the unlimited soda that we have in the new ballpark. And you know, or when I go out into the community to introduce baseball to a non baseball community, they care more about the promotions, you know, the food. They're not really into a sport. So I think it's a blessing for me to have that perspective. And that's actually how Sonia. Because I had a different perspective, that's how I came up with Sonia Dores because I was like, well, those guys in the field, they are the dreamers.
They are our Sonia Dores. Right? So I found the natural connection with the Latino community in the pursuit of, of the American dream. So I said we're all dreamers. So yeah, yeah. Shout out to te if anybody from there is listening.
But yeah, that's, that's where I am.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Todo Soos.
We are all dreamers indeed. Yes. Oh, thank you so much.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. Gracias.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: All right, thanks.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Seth Hoyland also joined the show today. Here's Jan's interview with him.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Okay, we are back. Another episode of Hopscast. I'm Jen Ellis and Sunny Phono is here with me. We have our wonderful Seth Hoyland with us.
Seth, I know you were on the road with the team last week, so can you give us a quick little rundown of what happened in Pasco?
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:09] Speaker D: On the road in Tri City. First six game trip of the year. So that first game trip was just three games to Eugene playing the Angels affiliate last week and Tri City actually is really loaded with talent this year, which has not historically been the case for the Angels affiliate there. They, you know, the Angels love to do things differently, to say the least.
And one of the things that they historically haven't done is send top prospects to Tri City, but they definitely have this year.
It was cool for me as a broadcaster and a fan of the game to see the number two overall pick in last year's draft, Tyler Bremner. He was a pitcher out of UC Santa. UC Santa Barbara. He was the number two overall pick. He's the Angels number one prospect. He pitched against us over the weekend and he was dominant. We actually ended up winning that game, which shows you, you know what can happen in baseball. But he actually struck out the first six batters of the game and struck out 10 over five innings. Yeah, so he was incredible. But they have, they had four of their, their five starters were top three round picks. So a lot of really good talent. And again, I'm a fan of the game in general, obviously always want the hops to win, but like watching the best players perform and so that, that was definitely really cool. Overall, the series, we won two of six.
Had a chance to get out of there with the series split, but on Sunday the pitching wasn't great, to say the least. We walked 14 and lost 16 to 3. But again, that happens in baseball. We play 132 games, so there's going to be some of those games out there.
Overall though, it was, yeah, good trip, nice, very cool.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: And then like you said, you know, watching baseball and as a fan, you want to see, you know, some of the top prospects. You love seeing that kind of stuff. I know you mentioned the last time that the Emeralds are kind of stacked this year. So they do have some of the Giants top prospects and that kind of thing. So the Emeralds come in tonight at the new ballpark here in Hillsborough for a six game series.
So any, anything you can think of off the top of your head that we need to look out for with the Emeralds this week?
[00:16:14] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean the, the Emeralds are loaded with prospect talent. They're leading the league right now by I think four games and we're only like 16 games into the season.
They swept us in that little three game series to open the year. So I know that the guys are looking to, to get back from that. But again, early in the season, anything can happen. Their pitching has been really, really impressive. If you look at any of the pitching stats in the League, really, in all of minor league baseball.
They're at the top of pretty much every category. I think their team era is like 2.5, which for this league especially is really, really good. So they have really solid starting pitching. They have some good bats in the middle of their lineup as well. Some power hitters, some, some high draft picks. And of course, with the Giants, you know, being one of the closest teams to here, there's a lot of people locally who care and follow the Giants prospects and stuff. And actually their Double A team has the best record in all of minor league baseball and they just opened a new ballpark as well, the Richmond Flying Squirrels and Double A. So the Giants in general have a lot of really good talent in their farm system and looking forward to seeing them this week.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Do you have a contact with the Flying Squirrels to get some of these guys up there?
[00:17:22] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. No. No kidding. Yeah, no, let's, let's promote all of their good players to get them out of here. But I mean that, that's really, you know, that's really how it goes. I mean, obviously depending on age, depending on a lot of things. That's another thing with Tri City. So they have, you know, some top round picks, but they have a really old team. So if you look at our roster, we have one of the youngest teams in the league. The average age of a player in the Northwest League is 22 and a half years old. So that's the average age of a player.
Tri City had six or seven guys who were 25 plus, which is unheard of. Yeah, they had a 28 year old pitching out of the bullpen. So again, the Angels do things a little bit differently. But, but I mean, as you mentioned, like, you know, especially at the beginning of the year, we've already had a couple promotions. The Double A, our, our team has you play well for a couple weeks and you're going to be moving on to the next level. So that's really the downside of this level is sometimes you only get to see guys for a little bit because you perform and you're going to move on, which obviously we hope every one of them makes it to the majors.
But you know, a guy like Slade Caldwell, who's just 19, you know, he's going to likely have, you know, a full season here no matter what.
But it is, it is interesting to see how different teams progress players different ways. And now too, I mean, for those of you who follow Major League Baseball, I mean, you're seeing, it seems every week. A 19 or 20 year old making their major league debut. So, you know, we talk about slade Caldwell being 19 and being young, but is that even young anymore?
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Not anymore. It doesn't seem.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: Yeah, it seemed. I. I swear every week there's a, there's a 19 or 20 year old or. Or young player making their debut. And I think it's. It's great, but it's just the, the timeline is progressing a lot quicker than it used to be.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You said a couple of our guys have already moved up to.
[00:18:59] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So it's actually really cool. So I think I talked about it last week. But Logan Mercado, he was a pitcher out of the bullpen. So again, here's a perfect example. Kind of an older pitcher. He went to college for four years more tenured guy, performed really well in the first couple weeks of the season. He was the one who was from Pasco. So he grew up. Yeah, so he grew up going to Tri City games. Unfortunately, he didn't get to pitch there, but his friends and family were there and after the, the third game of the series, he got told he was going to Double A, so.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:19:29] Speaker D: He was there with his friends and family at the ballpark that he, you know, grew up going to games to as a kid. And our coaches told him that he was going to Double A, so that was a pretty, pretty cool moment for him.
Yeah. So Logan went to Double A.
We actually just added one of the Diamondbacks top prospects today. He'll be our starting pitcher today. David Hageman.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:19:47] Speaker D: He was injured.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Was he here last year? Yeah, name sounds familiar.
[00:19:51] Speaker D: He was acquired in the trade for Merrill Kelly.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Oh, right, yes.
[00:19:53] Speaker D: So he was a Rangers prospect. He got traded mid season and then the D backs obviously getting Merrill Kelly back, so ended up getting kind of two for one there. So that, that worked out. But yeah, he's. He's electric. He's really, really impressive. He's a top 30 prospect. He might be a top 15 prospect. I'd have to look, but he's activated for today's game and he will be the starting pitcher.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Very cool. Nice. That sounds awesome. Yeah. And talking about wanting to see, you know, the best players and missing players before they get to come through Hillsboro. I was really pissed that we didn't get to see Trey Savage last year because the Canadians didn't come here till after he had already been bumped up to probably Triple A or so.
[00:20:28] Speaker D: Yeah. But yeah, for sure, he was, he was really impressive. I saw him actually twice in A series on the road in Vancouver. He pitched against. The beginning of the year. He was dominant. I mean, I don't even know if we got a couple hits off of him. He was, he was really, really good. But that's the thing. I mean, you. You have no idea. I mean, there's guys that we're seeing right now in April, whether it be our team, whether it be on the other teams who very, very well could be in the majors by the end of the year. Yeah, there's. There's a lot of. A lot of things that people just don't think about. Whether it be injuries, whether. Because you know, you have an injury at AAA and it has a ripple effect all the way down. And there's a guy, Anderson Rojas, who was on our team the last couple years, kind of a utility guy, and he ended up. He's in AAA right now because of injuries and he's hitting.350.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:14] Speaker D: And so he's now all of a sudden knocking on the doorstop doorstep of potentially an injury away from a big league call up. I mean, you just never know. So it's. It's really fascinating to see how all that stuff works. And again, these guys, I mean, they, you know, wait for their opportunity and again you perform and you go out there and he. Anderson was supposed to come back, but they're like, you know, He's. He's literally hitting.350 in Triple A. So they're. He's batting at the top of the order, playing pretty much every position for them up there. So that's pretty cool. But Eugene's top prospect, who leads the league in a lot of hitting categories is a guy by the name of Gavin Keelan. He's one of the Giants top prospects. He was a 13th overall pick in the 2025 draft out of Tennessee. Okay, so he's definitely a guy to look out for this week. Outfielder.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Nice.
All right, cool. Thank you so much for the update. I really appreciate it. We. We always love having you and we will talk to you again soon.
[00:22:05] Speaker D: You got it.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks, Seth.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Hopscast, hosted by Jen Ellis and co hosted and produced by Sunny Phono. Join us again next week as we take you inside the 2026 Hillsboro Hops clubhouse. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe.
