They are adversaries this week. But their bond will never be broken. Consider that when Semien brought his family to the nation\u2019s capital so they could be D.C. tourists and take in some baseball, Toboni lent him a babysitter so the younger Semien kids could stay home while the three oldest went to the ballpark.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the best teammates I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Toboni said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extremely excited for him to be a leader of an organization,\u201d Semien said, \u201cbecause he\u2019s always been a great leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
That they played baseball together at Cal maybe seemed fated then. That they\u2019re standing on opposite sides of the field in completely different roles is nothing short of wild. Toboni grew up in San Francisco as a baseball and basketball player who dabbled with the idea of playing both sports at an Ivy League school. Semien was also born in San Francisco but grew up in the East Bay, also playing baseball and basketball. Toboni went to a Catholic high school in San Francisco. Semien went to a Catholic high school in Berkeley. They both arrived at Cal in the fall of 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys are so bonded,\u201d said David Esquer, then the head coach at Cal, now in the same position at Stanford. \u201cThey\u2019re bonded through the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire was both individual (in Toboni\u2019s case) and collective. Throughout his college career, Toboni, a middle infielder, battled injuries. He twice had surgery on his hips. He was limited to 25 games spread over three seasons.<\/p>\n
Somehow, he was still a vital thread of the Bears\u2019 fabric.<\/p>\n
![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/12Base-Toboni-close-up-026-MP-1024x720.jpg\")
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\n Paul Toboni became a crucial member of the Cal baseball team despite being hindered by injuries. (Cal baseball)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a super athlete, just so much athleticism from basketball,\u201d Semien said. \u201cBut he\u2019s also just a grinder. He\u2019d just grind out at-bats, play the game the right way, dive for balls, all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he had injuries, and that meant he wasn\u2019t going to get to play as much,\u201d Esquer said. \u201cBut one of the impacts he had is that he came to work every day, and his practice energy was incredible. He really made it hard for anybody to not put out full effort on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Semien, meanwhile, became the Bears\u2019 shortstop, a hitter talented enough to put in the middle of the lineup. As he matured, he was in the center of everything the team did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say this in a really positive connotation,\u201d Toboni said. \u201cHe\u2019s got like a hardened nature to him where he deals with failure extremely well, and he\u2019s just ultra-competitive. He\u2019s all the things that we look for in players in terms of intangibles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Semien, Toboni and the rest of the Bears needed all of those traits during the 2010-11 academic year. That September, Cal announced<\/a> that baseball would be one of four sports cut for economic reasons. Esquer and his staff spent time finding schools to which their players could transfer. In the midst of existential questions for the program, nearly the entire team stayed.<\/p>\n \u201cThey really made a statement that they were at Cal because they loved the school and they were committed to the team,\u201d Esquer said. \u201cAnd those two guys were just cornerstones of the locker room culture, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/11Base-team-139-1024x819.jpg\")
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