Obituary: Tony Rojo played with Solons, Latino baseball teams

Sebastian "Tony" Rojo, a prominent Sacramento sports figure who played for the Solons, starred on Latino baseball teams and officiated at high school and college games for many years, died Monday. He was 73.

He died after a two-year fight with pancreatic cancer, said his daughter, Kimberly Rojo Buhk.

Mr. Rojo was an athlete at Courtland High School and played baseball at Grant Tech Junior College, now American River College. In 1957, the minor-league Sacramento Solons signed him to play second base and catcher. He spent eight months on the team but turned down a trade to Texas and left to get married in Sacramento.

He served six years in the Army National Guard at Fort Ord before returning to the field with the Mexican-American Baseball League in the 1960s. He maintained a .461 batting average with the Cannery Union in Sacramento and supported other players in the close-knit league as a mentor and friend.

"He was very well known and very well liked," said his younger brother, Roger, who also played in the league. "I used to follow him around to play in Stockton, Modesto and San Francisco, and he got me into it. He was a very good ballplayer."

Mr. Rojo stayed in the game after his playing days were over as a member of the Northern California Officials Association. He officiated basketball, baseball and football at Northern California high schools and West Coast colleges for more than 30 years.

He worked with many players who became coaches and star athletes, including former NBA star Kevin Johnson, his family said. He passed his love of sports on to children as a Little League coach.

In 1990, he was inducted into the Mexican-American Hall of Fame Sports Association. The LaSalle Club at Christian Brothers High School also honored his contributions as a baseball umpire and basketball official in 2003. "We could never go anywhere without my dad being recognized by someone he knew as a player or official," Kimberly Rojo Buhk said. "He had a lot of local ties."

Sebastian Alvarez Rojo was born in 1935 in Calexico to farm laborers who moved their nine children with the harvest season. He played baseball, basketball and football at Courtland High School and graduated as student body president in 1954.

He worked as a machinist at Southern Pacific railroad while pursuing his baseball dreams and retired after 41 years in 1995. He eloped with Jeannette Mello in 1958 and was married until her death in 2005.

Mr. Rojo was a warm and caring man, his daughter said. He loved celebrating his wife's Portuguese American heritage as an active member of St. Elizabeth's Social Club and the Southside Improvement Association. He belonged to St. Rose Church for many years and enjoyed bus trips with friends to Reno.

He hunted, fished and owned season tickets to San Francisco 49ers games "since they played at Kezar Stadium," his daughter said.

"We couldn't understand the younger generation not playing sports the way we did," Roger Rojo said. "We forever had 12, 14, 16 guys always wanting to play something. If it was in season, we were playing it."

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Robert D. Dávila, (916) 321-1077.