Alex Motawi

When Billy Horton wore his Highwheelers gear at breakfast, the host asked him, “Are you part of a bike club?” The Highwheelers, Davis’ new Pioneer Baseball League team, was off to a rocky start.

Named after the vintage bikes used in the 1880s–when our local baseball team was the Davisville Oletas–the Highwheelers hope to be the pride of Davis, capitalizing on two of our earliest traditions: baseball and bikes. 

Davis has a very rich biking and baseball history. It entered a golden age in 1967, when it became the first U.S. city to install bike lanes, and Phil Swimley joined the Aggies as Head Coach.

While Phil Swimley was leading the Aggies to the college baseball World Series and becoming the seventh-most winningest Head Coach in NCAA history, Davis became the most bike-friendly city in the United States. When Davis was the first school to receive the League of American Bicyclists Platinum Award, 3 UC Davis baseball graduates were playing Major League Baseball, the pinnacle of baseball worldwide. 

One of those players is Joe Biagini. Most known in the baseball world for giving great interviews and pitching in a combined no-hitter, he enjoyed his time in Davis as a transfer student. A self-described “late bloomer” while at Davis Biagini was “very much learning,” both as a student and a ballplayer. “I was very raw, and because of that, I had to really focus on my mechanics and myself,” Biagini said. “I was just hanging on by a thread.” He did that and more, eventually pitching in games for the Aggies and making it to baseball’s highest level.

Biagini believes in the Yolo County Highwheelers’ mission with Billy Horton at the forefront. United in their love for baseball, they both agree that on-field results are a small part of what it means to be a baseball player. 

When asked what he took away from the game of baseball, Biagini said, “I took away some equipment,” and continued to say, “I practiced subtraction on the dirt in the bullpen and took away numbers.” Once he had a laugh, he discussed how the game was pivotal in his relationship with his dad and how his dad set a great example for him as a parent.

Horton wants to be that sort of dad—to his kids and to the young men he coaches. While Horton wants to go back to coaching in the MLB someday, he picked the Highwheelers because Davis is closer to his family, allowing him to be more present for his kids.

Horton is the perfect person to lead the Highwheelers. As last year’s Pioneer Baseball League Manager of the Year, he has the chops to put a great baseball team on the field and the mindset to help the community. Horton says that he feels “called to be an example of a good man to these younger men trying to realize their dream,” and that one of his main tenets as a coach is “to try and be a good example, knowing that someday baseball is going to go away [for the players].”

The team is owned by Oakland natives Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel, who founded the Highwheelers in addition to the Oakland Ballers. Because the Oakland Ballers are the true passion of the pair, Freedman says they plan on “passing the reins to local residents who share our passion for using sports teams as a vehicle for strengthening communities.” 

While not Davis’ team yet, if the Highwheelers can keep their momentum, they could be the organization Davis didn’t know it wanted. When a baseball team has the right leaders, they can become a pillar in a community, and Joe Biagini believes that Jimmy Horton and Gary Davenport (Bench Coach) are the right ones for the job. 

The Highwheelers rode their namesake bikes during the picnic day parade, and everyone cheered. Only a few people knew they were Davis’ new professional baseball team and not a bike club, but that should change throughout the season. And hey, applause is applause.