The sauce was produced with the help of Barnstorm Marketing and RBA Sports. Bob Barlow, the owner of RBA Sports, said in an email that he “developed the concept to ‘thank’ Terry Francona for bringing great baseball to Cleveland.”
In the past, Barlow created a salsa named for former Tribe shortstop Omar Vizquel.
“[Omar’s] fans wanted to show their gratitude for his outstanding baseball skills,” Barlow wrote. “So they supported his Salsa for three years until he was traded.”
Seeing how fans came out to thank Vizquel for being a great player by buying his salsa, Barlow knew “Terry Francona had the same quality for fine baseball play” and knew baseball fans would want to thank him as well.
Tito & Son Pasta Sauce is a recipe “made by Terry’s Mom that he enjoyed growing up,” according to Barlow.
The sauce can be bought online — the website is aptly named: franconapastasauce.com — and also purchased from grocery stores like Marc’s, Gallucci’s, Acme Fresh Markets, and Lake Road Market in Rocky River. Like it says on the jar, “a portion of the proceeds will benefit Cleveland Indians Charities.”
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2017.
The old school ad captures the positive personalities of father and son. Some area sports fans may recall The Albert Belle (chocolate) Bar, which was slated to market the fun side of the surly slugger….the May 1995 launch fizzled when Belle failed to show up to the news conference; claiming that he had a lousy night’s sleep.