2023 Mascot Hall of Fame Greatest Community Impact Award Winner
Hornsby the Bull is the energetic mascot of the Tulsa Drillers, the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, competing in the Texas League of Minor League Baseball (MiLB). The Drillers have been a cornerstone of Tulsa’s sports scene since 1977, and Hornsby has become the franchise’s most visible community ambassador. His name pays a quiet nod to Baseball Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. In 2023, Hornsby earned the Mascot Hall of Fame Greatest Community Impact Award for the MiLB category — and the numbers behind his win are extraordinary.
Hornsby’s Bully Busters Club
Since 2016, Hornsby has partnered with the Tulsa Health Department to bring the Bully Busters Club to kindergarten through 2nd-grade classrooms across Tulsa County. The program is built around five concrete, memorable steps:
- Say STOP
- Walk Away
- Ignore
- Avoid/Stay Away
- Report
Hornsby doesn’t just recite the steps; he acts them out, giving kids a physical, entertaining anchor for lessons that genuinely stick. During the 2022–2023 school year alone, he personally visited 36 schools across 8 school districts, welcoming more than 9,500 students into the club. Schools outside Tulsa County or with scheduling conflicts could access a bilingual digital version of the program, originally developed during the COVID-era remote learning, in both English and Spanish.
A Personal Mission Behind the Program
For Drillers representative Taylor, this isn’t just a community outreach checkbox — it’s personal. Having been bullied as a kid himself, he sees Hornsby as the friend he needed back then, and he now helps Hornsby inspire the next generation to be that friend for each other. Every season also features a dedicated Anti-Bullying Field Trip Game, bringing the whole message full circle inside the ballpark.
Rogers Hornsby, the Hall of Famer Hornsby the Bull is named for, posted a .424 batting average in 1924 — still the highest single-season average in MLB history since 1900. Hornsby the Bull’s batting average is unverified, but his community stats are unmatched.
