The Oakland Athletics made personnel moves at AAA Tacoma for 1985 that Tacoma General Manager Stan Naccarato didn't like and Naccarato let the Athletics know it, The Tacoma News Tribune wrote.
The disagreement even led to an argument between Naccarato and Athletics then-new VP of baseball operations Sandy Alderson, though they eventually patched things over, The News Tribune wrote.
"Stan is highly motivated and emotionally involved with his team and city," Alderson told The News Tribune that December. "Occasionally, things are said, and, on reflection, regretted."
By that point, Naccarato had been involved with Tacoma baseball for more than a decade. In fact, he's even credited as saving it. He also went on to earn the title of Tacoma's Mr. Baseball.
Naccarato's career in baseball actually began in the minors himself. He's credited as playing three seasons in the Reds system, at Class C Ogden in 1947 and 1948 and then at single-A Charleston in 1949.
He then returned to Tacoma, got involved in promotion, announcing and got into radio.
In 1971, as general manager of a local radio station, he was credited as spearheading a campaign to save AAA baseball in Tacoma, securing $100,000 in commitments from local businesses over 16 hours to get a new franchise after the old one left.
For his efforts, he was named the new team's general manager, The Tacoma News Tribune wrote that October.
"The 22 Tacoma businessmen who heard Naccarato's pleas to save baseball during a 16-hour telephone campaign refused to consider anyone else as a general manager possibility," The News Tribune wrote.
By 1990, Naccarato had become "one of the most successful professional baseball executives in the United States," his 1990 card back reads. He won the Sporting News' Executive of the Year award in 1975 and twice won the award for most successful minor league franchise.
Along the way, he continued work in boxing promotion, and worked to elevate Tacoma with a national soccer team, executive vice president of the Major Indoor Soccer League Tacoma Stars.
In 2004, the Tacoma Rainiers held a tribute night for Naccarato, "whose voice has moved everything in Pierce County but that big mountain behind the bleachers in Cheney Stadium," a News Tribune columnist wrote.
Naccarato passed away in 2016, at the age of 88.
"It saddens me to realize an entire generation of fans has no idea of who he was, or what he meant to keeping pro baseball in Tacoma," Frank Colarusso, a former Tacoma baseball associate of Naccarato told The News Tribune upon Naccarato's passing. "That's life - we evolve and move along - but everybody in our community should know that this man was a true icon."
- Tacoma News Tribune, Oct. 16, 1971: Naccarato Names Boss of Tacoma's Baseball
- Tacoma News Tribune, Dec. 15, 1985: All smiles now: Tigers and A's seem to have settled their family feud
- Tacoma News Tribune, Sept. 3, 2004: Voice will be familiar tonight at tribute to Stan Naccarato
- Tacoma News Tribune, May 26, 2016: He put his salesmanship skills into Tacoma sports, Part 2
Made the Majors:1,409-32.2%
Never Made Majors:2,963-67.8%-X
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