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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Ingle

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

3/5/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Oscar Acosta, In Honor

SM 65

ANALYST Schuss

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Memorial 65 lauds the life of Oscar Acosta and expresses the condolence of the Senate on

his untimely death.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Senate Memorial 65 states that Oscar Acosta was born March 21, 1957 in Portales and grew up

in Elida, graduating from Elida high school. Oscar was the proud son of Juan and Concha

Acosta, who came to the United States from Mexico in the 1950s as part of a federal program

that solicited workers to build railroads. In 1978, at Lubbock Christian College, Oscar was

named an All-American pitcher by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. He

played minor league baseball for three years with the Philadelphia Phillies and one year in the

Mexican League before a torn rotator cuff ended his pitching career. He began his professional

coaching career in 1988 in the minor leagues, working for the Texas Rangers and the New York

Yankees organizations and the Columbus Clippers of the international league, and he moved to

the major league as a pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs in 2000 and 2001 and for the Texas

Rangers in 2002. While with the Chicago Cubs, he helped to turn around one of the national

league’s worst pitching staffs and in 2001, his pitchers set a major league record with one

thousand three hundred four strikeouts. He rejoined the Yankee’s organization in 2004 as

manager of its Gulf Coast League team where his skills netted the team league championships in

2004 and 2005 and earned him the title “Manager of the Year" in 2004.

Senate Memorial 65 – Page

2

Oscar Acosta and Humberto Trejo were tragically killed in an automobile accident on April 19,

2006 while they were on a scouting trip to the Dominican Republic. Oscar Acosta was a tough,

intense coach who taught his pitchers mental toughness and how to be mentally prepared for the

game and while Oscar loved baseball and the young men he coached, his greatest love was his

family. He was a man molded by the hard life of rural poverty, steeped in the values of Old

Mexico and the Eastern Plains of New Mexico, and he held dear the lessons he learned from his

parents and his community about the value of persistence and hard work and the importance of

respect and love of family.

The Senate of the State of New Mexico requests that New Mexico’s native son, Oscar Acosta, be

recognized for his many accomplishments and that heartfelt condolences be extended to the

family and friends of Oscar Acosta.

BS/csd