2023 Dublin Leprechauns Season Recap - A Broken Gas Tank, an April Fools Announcement and the Birth of a Franchise
The story of the 2023 Dublin Leprechauns may be one of the most bizarre franchise origin stories in Pecos League history. Dublin was not part of a carefully planned expansion process that began a year in advance. There had been no long campaign to bring professional baseball to the city, no months of stadium negotiations and no traditional offseason buildup. Instead, the Leprechauns were born because a car broke down on Interstate 580 less than two months before Opening Day.
It was April of 2023 and the Pecos League was approximately 45 days away from beginning its season. Commissioner Andrew Dunn had stored his car near the Oakland BART station during the offseason and returned to Northern California with a coach to pick it up and drive it back to Bakersfield for the upcoming baseball season. At first, everything appeared normal, but roughly 15 minutes after leaving the Oakland airport area on Interstate 580, the car suddenly stopped running. It appeared to have simply run out of gas. After about an hour, the California Highway Patrol helped with transportation to the nearest gas station, where a gas container was purchased. Gas was brought back to the vehicle, the tank was refilled and the car was driven to a nearby Chevron station in Dublin.
That was when the real problem became obvious. Someone had cut the gas tank horizontally. As gasoline was added, it poured back out and flooded the parking lot beneath the vehicle. What looked like a routine inconvenience had become a much larger problem, but the location turned out to be extraordinarily fortunate. Near the Chevron station were both an automotive repair shop and an O'Reilly Auto Parts store. The repair shop examined the problem and explained that a replacement gas tank would have to be ordered and could take approximately four weeks to arrive. Four weeks was not going to work with the Pecos League season approaching.
Then an O'Reilly's service manager offered a completely different solution. He recommended fuel-tank repair epoxy and believed the repair could have the car back on the road in approximately 10 minutes. That temporary repair changed the future of Pecos League baseball in Northern California. During the incident, the California Highway Patrol officer assisting Dunn mentioned that Dublin was building a new baseball facility and suggested that the Pecos League take a look at it. The field was expected to be ready for the upcoming season and, according to the officer, could potentially be an ideal location for professional baseball.
The suggestion was unexpected, but there was little reason not to investigate it. The Pecos League contacted Anthony Calvo with the City of Dublin and began discussing the possibility of using the new field. What had started with a damaged gas tank on Interstate 580 quickly turned into conversations about bringing an entirely new professional baseball team to the city. Approximately two weeks later, the Dublin Leprechauns were born.
The timing made the announcement even stranger. The team was announced on April 1. The Pecos League announced that the Dublin Leprechauns would replace the Santa Rosa Scuba Divers for the 2023 season. With a team called the Leprechauns suddenly appearing on April Fools' Day only weeks before the season, many people assumed the entire announcement was a joke. It was not. Dublin was getting a professional baseball team, and the Pecos League now had only a matter of weeks to build the operation from the ground up.
There was no normal expansion timeline. The organization needed players, coaches, uniforms, equipment, schedules, staffing and everything else required to put a professional baseball team on the field. The club was being created while the rest of the league was already making final preparations for Opening Day. The result was exactly what might be expected from a franchise built in a matter of weeks. The 2023 Dublin Leprechauns struggled badly.
There were nights when the team looked every bit as rushed as the circumstances surrounding its creation. Dublin changed managers multiple times, had difficulty maintaining consistency and spent much of the summer trying simply to establish what the organization was supposed to be. Trevor Wick began the season as manager. Wick was also listed among Dublin's 2023 players, reflecting the flexible roles that sometimes become necessary in independent baseball, particularly for an expansion club assembled on extremely short notice.
Wick would not finish the season in charge. Aaron Miles eventually replaced him, becoming the second manager of the Leprechauns' inaugural year. Miles also would not finish the season, and Albert Dominguez later took over the club. By the end of Dublin's first summer, three different managers had been responsible for trying to keep the new franchise moving forward.
The constant managerial change became one of the defining problems of the season. An expansion team already faced enormous challenges establishing a roster and building chemistry. Changing leadership repeatedly only made the process more difficult. The results reflected the instability. Dublin lost frequently and often badly. There were stretches when simply getting through the schedule became the primary objective. Opposing Pacific Division teams had established rosters, experienced managers and organizational systems already in place. The Leprechauns were trying to build all of those things while simultaneously playing games.
There were still players who gave Dublin quality performances during the difficult year. Kyle Montebon became one of the most consistent members of the lineup, appearing in 47 games and collecting 50 hits in 153 at-bats for a .327 batting average. He scored 31 runs, drove in 31 and stole 16 bases.
Kairee Tekra also provided quality production, batting .362 while collecting 42 hits in 32 games and stealing 16 bases. Josue Rivera hit .375 in 32 games and supplied four home runs and 22 RBIs, while Aramis Cruz hit .333 during his 17-game stint with the club.
Saul Razo was another regular presence, appearing in 44 games while collecting 42 hits, scoring 30 runs and driving in 25. Mark Jacob handled much of the catching workload and appeared in 39 games. The roster also included players such as Ashanti Ross, Isaiah Lewis, Kyler LeRoux and Arnold Dominguez as Dublin searched throughout the summer for combinations that could make the club more competitive.
For all of the losses, however, the first season produced a few victories that became memorable precisely because they were so difficult to obtain. The first came on May 30 against the Monterey Amberjacks. Dublin had built a 6-2 lead after five innings, putting the Leprechauns in position to earn the first victory in franchise history. Then something happened that could only seem appropriate for a team whose entire existence had begun with a damaged gas tank and an April Fools' Day announcement.
The sprinklers came on.
With Dublin leading 6-2, the field irrigation system mysteriously activated. Whether it was bad timing, a programming issue or simply another strange moment in an already strange inaugural season, the incident immediately became part of Leprechauns history. The game ended with Dublin earning its first victory. For a team that had been assembled only weeks earlier, the win mattered. The Leprechauns finally had something permanent in the record book. Whatever happened during the rest of the summer, nobody could take away the first victory in franchise history.
The second memorable win came on June 21 in Marysville. This one ended in an entirely different way. The decisive play involved catcher's interference, allowing Dublin to come away with another victory in one of the strangest endings of the season. For a team whose first year already seemed filled with improbable circumstances, winning a game on a catcher's interference call fit perfectly.
The Leprechauns were not winning often, but when they did, they seemed determined to make the victories memorable. That became part of the charm of the inaugural season. Dublin could lose badly one night and then find itself involved in something completely unexpected the next. The club was learning how to operate in real time, and the players were learning how to compete together under changing managers and difficult circumstances.
The season was undoubtedly the toughest year Dublin would experience. The team had not been given the luxury of a normal offseason. The organization had gone from nonexistent to active in a matter of weeks. Players were being assembled while the league calendar was already approaching Opening Day. The coaching staff changed repeatedly. The team had almost no institutional history from which to draw. Everything had to be invented as the season happened.
Even the name helped make the franchise feel unusual from the beginning. Announcing the Dublin Leprechauns on April 1 almost guaranteed skepticism. People assumed the Pecos League was making an elaborate April Fools' joke. Instead, the joke became a real baseball team. And in some ways, the team played like an April Fools' joke during portions of that first season. There were bad losses, managerial turnover, unusual situations and games that seemed to develop their own strange logic.
It was not a polished beginning. But it was a beginning.
That distinction is what ultimately matters when looking back at 2023. The Pecos League could easily have decided not to replace Santa Rosa at such a late date. Creating an entirely new operation with only weeks remaining before the season was an enormous challenge. Dublin could easily have been treated as a temporary emergency solution that disappeared after one difficult summer.
Instead, the Leprechauns survived.
The field in Dublin gave the Pecos League something it had been looking for in Northern California: another location capable of fitting into the league's growing Bay Area footprint. The team's first season was rough, but the underlying opportunity was much more important than the standings. The relationship with Dublin provided another geographic piece alongside the Pecos League's other Bay Area clubs. Rather than disappearing after the chaotic inaugural season, the Leprechauns became part of the league's long-term structure in Northern California.
That would have seemed almost impossible on the morning Dunn went to retrieve his car in Oakland. If the gas tank had not been cut, the car likely would have driven directly through Dublin without anyone stopping. If the car had broken down somewhere else, the California Highway Patrol officer might never have mentioned the new baseball field. If the automotive shop had been able to immediately replace the tank, there might not have been time to hear about the facility. If the O'Reilly's employee had not offered a quick epoxy repair, the trip itself might have ended completely differently.
Instead, a chain of completely unrelated events led directly to a conversation with the City of Dublin. Two weeks later there was a baseball team.
That is how the Dublin Leprechauns began. Not through a traditional expansion study. Not through years of negotiations. Not through a major ownership announcement. Through a broken-down car, a cut gas tank, a helpful highway patrol officer and a baseball field that happened to be nearing completion at exactly the right time.
The 2023 season itself was rough. Trevor Wick began as manager, Aaron Miles replaced him and Albert Dominguez eventually became the third manager of the inaugural season. Players came and went. The losses piled up. Dublin had to learn almost every aspect of operating a professional baseball franchise while the games were already being played.
But there were moments that immediately became part of team history. There was the first win over Monterey with Dublin leading 6-2 after five innings when the sprinklers mysteriously came on. There was the June 21 victory in Marysville decided by catcher's interference. There were players such as Montebon, Tekra and Rivera who gave the club legitimate offensive production despite the team's struggles. Montebon's 47 games and 50 hits gave Dublin one of its most consistent performers, while Tekra and Rivera both finished above .360 at the plate.
Most importantly, there was a franchise still standing when the season ended. The 2023 Dublin Leprechauns were not a championship team. They were not a playoff contender. They were not even a particularly good baseball team.
But their first season should not be judged entirely by the standings. The important accomplishment was that the Dublin Leprechauns existed at all. A team created approximately 45 days before Opening Day survived its first season, established a home in Dublin and provided the Pecos League with another permanent foothold in the Bay Area.
What almost everyone thought was an April Fools' joke became a real professional baseball franchise.
And what began with a leaking gas tank on Interstate 580 became the foundation of the Dublin Leprechauns.
