By Trevor Morgan
Modesto’s new Pioneer Baseball League team, recently named the Glow Riders, announced six-time Gold Glove award winner and former San Francisco Giant J.T. Snow as its manager last week. The Glow Riders, an expansion team, will compete in the same league as Oakland’s Ballers.
Snow played first base for most of his career and won the premier position-player award six consecutive times from 1995 to 2000 as both a California Angel and a Giant.
His career slashes (batting average, on base percentage and slugging) were .268/.357/.427.
Snow was initially drafted by the New York Yankees in 1992 but was traded to the Angels the next season. He played for the Angels from 1993 to 1996. He was traded in 1997 to the Giants, where he played until 2005. Snow’s tenure with the Giants included a World Series appearance in 2002. The Giants lost to Snow’s former team, the Angels, in game seven. Snow had a .407 batting average in that series. He retired a Giant in 2008.
Since 2024, Snow had been the bench manager for the Ballers, who made headlines for replacing the Oakland Athletics following their departure for Las Vegas via Sacramento. The Ballers won the Pioneer League championship in 2025.
Snow was announced at a press conference held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in downtown Modesto.
During his address, Snow covered how he was going to roster the team, his style-of-play philosophy and his approach to community engagement. Snow said he did his research into the history of baseball in the area and called it “a great baseball town.”
“We’re an independent baseball team and we don’t have any affiliation with any major league team, so we’re going to have an affiliation with the people of Modesto and the fans of Modesto,” he said. The press conference also announced Alex Leach as the team’s pitching coach. Leach is the head coach for Modesto Junior College’s Pirates baseball team.
The Glow Riders will arrive as the Single-A Modesto Nuts — an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners since 2017 — will relocate to San Bernardino in 2025.