Shuckers welcome new team owner to Biloxi

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - The new owner of the Biloxi Shuckers John Tracy was introduced on Friday at MGM Park.

Tracy is a leader for his family food distribution business Dot Foods in the St. Louis area. Tracy said when he started looking around the country for opportunities to buy a minor league baseball team, he saw the Shuckers as a perfect fit.

“The most important thing we looked for when we were looking at it was if we had an opportunity to grow and we think Biloxi has an excellent opportunity to grow,” Tracy said. “We needed a management team we could grow with, and we think we can grow with the management team. We need to be able to bring other events to this stadium and all three of those things are here and that’s why we’re excited.”

Tracy became interested in taking over a minor league team while following his son Matt Tracy around the minors when he was a player. His son also played in college at Ole Miss.

“I’ve probably seen more minor league baseball parks than almost any minor league owner that has ever bought a team because I’ve been around the country watching my son play.”

Now that he’s leading the Shuckers, Tracy is putting together a plan to improve game attendance and bring other events to MGM Park.

“I think the potential is here because there’s plenty of population, it’s a tourism opportunity here, the weather is conducive to baseball and other activities. When you look at other minor league parks in these communities it would suggest we should be able to put more people into the park and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”

Tracy’s ownership group Shuckers Baseball, LLC takes over the team from outgoing owner Ken Young. Tracy said it took about a year to finalize the deal to buy the Shuckers.

Want more WLOX news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.

Copyright 2023 WLOX. All rights reserved.