Henry’s scorebook shows Vallejo’s four-run first inning
Henry
Keeps Score
by
Jamie Jobb
With
no programs available and the scoreboard ignoring balls and strikes,
Martinez Clippers baseball fans had their work cut out for them as the home
squad lost all four games of its inaugural home-stand last weekend at
Joe DiMaggio Field 3.
For
the most part fans understood their need for patience, knowing
Martinez fielded this paraprofessional team from scratch in only
eight weeks – after months of negotiations among team owners, City
Hall and the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, an
independent hardball league unattached to MLB.
This
weekend, the outmoded softball scoreboard (expected to be replaced
soon) could only indicate inning number and current score – which
eventually was most unkind to the team now calling refurbished
Waterfront Park “home”.
In
a pair of two-game series, the Clippers got crushed by Sonoma’s
Stompers and dismissed by Vallejo’s Admirals for a combined score
of 52-24. After four games, Martinez is alone in the cellar, the
only team in the league without a win, while the Admirals sit atop
Monday’s standings, unbeaten at 4-0. Sonoma finished the weekend
2-2.
Two
of the Clipper losses were tight games with Sonoma winning 12-9
Friday night and Vallejo winning 13-8 on Saturday. If nothing else,
the Clippers proved they are a gritty bunch in their spanking-new
all-white home uniforms.
Vallejo
returns to town for Saturday and Sunday games again this weekend
while the new Napa Silverados come to town for games Thursday and
Friday nights in the first meeting of these Pacific Association
expansion teams.
*
* *
Henry in "The Catbird Seat" with scorebook in press box
Martinez’
new paraprofessional team harkens back to days a century ago when
scores of local baseball clubs flourished in an area now dominated by
Athletics and Giants branding. In those days local leagues were also
organized in refineries and other industrial workplaces along the
Contra Costa shoreline.
Baseball
has moved on, in other words. And so it was that nine-year-old
Henry Cao went to the new ballyard with friends on Saturday night,
then returned with us Sunday for the Clippers first-ever day game.
My wife is Henry’s tutor and we knew about the scoreboard issue.
But we also know Henry is good at math, so we figured he could use a
scorebook to follow the game.
Most
baseball writers – and a lot of serious fans – keep a scorebook
as they track their team’s progress through the season.
Scorekeeping is a traditional skill that acknowledges the statistical
roots of the National Pastime. The scorecard is the chart that leads
to a speedy assembly of the game’s final box score.
“
Scoring
is the fan’s game,”
writes Paul Dickson in The Joy of Keeping Score. “It
does not belong to the
owners, players, their union or Major League Baseball. It is
literally ours.”
Henry stumps Clipper fan engagement guru Brent Martin
For
his first time as a scorekeeper, Henry had the luck of a charmed
quark Sunday. As soon as he walked through the gate, Henry was
approached by a good-looking tall guy with a beard and a portable
microphone. The man is Clippers coordinator of fan engagement Brent
Martin whose job is to bring folks onto the field for a bit of fun
and mirth between innings.
Martin
loves to work with kids and his job was very easy opening night when
the ballpark was sold out and full of youngsters who got in free
wearing their youth league uniforms. But Sunday afternoon, that deal
was off and few children were among the 100 in attendance, so Martin
asked Henry onto the field to announce the rally call for ballparks
everywhere: “Play ball!”
Henry
took the microphone and
gave it his best shout,
although clearly he’d not
rehearsed for his
moment of public
address. Throughout
home games, Martin peppers fans with trivial pursuits –
guessing the price of concession stand items or what’s skipper
Chris Decker’s favorite holiday. Or he runs young fans in
spinning-dizzy sackless sack-races. He even engaged a pair of
teenaged boys Sunday to race to first base in hula skirts!
Henry sits between official scorekeeper (L) and podcasters
Vallejo
Admiral podcaster Scott Armstrong noticed Henry was keeping score –
while
sitting in the sun and wilting in the 94-degree heat. So between
the second and third innings, Armstrong
invited the boy to the press box to
sit in the shade with
both teams podcast crews, the radar-gun guy, and Official
Scorer
Jack Higgins who was more than willing to let Henry occupy
the vacant seat next to him.
There,
Henry could learn right away if a play had been ruled
a “wild pitch” (wp) or a “passed ball” (pb) and
scored an error
charged either to the pitcher or
the catcher.
Higgins also
helped the boy
score odd plays like a Clippers pick-off of a slow Admiral baserunner
… 9-to-6-to-4
… catching a runner off second base. (This
basic ball code will be explained shortly for those who do not know
it.)
Higgins
is a right-handed pitcher himself, a junior on the San Francisco
State squad where
he learned to keep team scorecards and stat sheets in the dugout. He
considers himself self-taught and he was more than willing to help
Henry teach himself how to fill in his own
book as the game
dragged on.
“It’s
kinda hard to do,” Henry said. “But when you start, you’ll get
better!”
Henry plays third base for the Dodgers in Martinez Youth League. He’s new to the game, so he’s just getting used to The Hot Corner. In fact, he didn’t even know about that jargon before Sunday. But, now sitting in The Catbird Seat, as Red Barber used to say, Henry had the whole field in front of him, shade over his head and his ears were listening to TWO play-by-play callers.
It’s a safe bet that no other Clipper fan in the ballpark was having this much fun keeping track of what’s happening on the field.
*
* *
Clipper catcher Wilkyns Jimenez donates his broken bat
Henry’s
biggest treat of the day arrived when Higgins suggested that the boy
ask for the broken bat of Clipper catcher Wilkyns Jimenez, who had
two passed balls during the game which Higgins officially recorded
and Henry dutifully marked in his scorebook.
The
catcher broke the bat in the bottom of the ninth on a foul ball,
before walking to score the Clippers’ fifth and final run.
Jimenez
also had the assignment of catching Clipper knuckleball reliever
Colin Moberly, who had struck out ten batters in eight innings of
relief in the first two games.
A
six-foot-two, 215-pound catcher from Falcon Venezuela, Jimenez can
seem quite imposing for a four-foot-one, 64-pound third baseman. But Henry
walked up to the Clipper dugout after the game and asked through the
fence if he could have Wilkyns’ broken bat. The catcher brought it
out, gave it to Henry and posed for a picture.
After
Jimenez returned to the clubhouse, Henry said “He’s huge!”
In
addition to his scorebook, Henry also took home three foul balls, a
league schedule
brochure and his broken bat.
After
the game, the
lucky boy said
keeping score is “kinda easy” and he will “probably” keep up
his scorebook for
games he sees in person.
His only complaint on the day:
“I
don’t like the ump. He’s calling the wrong strikes!”
*
* *
Official Scorekeeper Jack Higgins shows Henry his book
How
to Keep Score: Baseball is the most statistically telling
occupation anyone would ever face regarding performance evaluation.
A player can be known to hit .346 as a right-handed batter in night
games in the rain in American League ballparks in September. For
example. No other job withstands such statistical scrutiny. And all
the statistics are filtered through the scorebook. Keeping score
involves knowing this code:
1.
Players have numbers based on their defensive position on the field
1) pitcher; 2) catcher; 3) first base; 4) second base; 5) third base,
6) shortstop; 7) left field; 8) center field; 9) right field.
2.
Every at-bat by each player gets recorded in a box based on the
team’s batting order that day. The code for these results (“hr”
for “home run”, etc.) is listed in the front of most scorebooks
and on the charts themselves.
3.
At the end of the game, each player’s performance gets totaled on
the page – setting down the new stats for that game.
*
* *
Don’t
pester the talent. A local elected official (not connected to
City Hall) was among the 500 in attendance opening night and found himself quite
full of inspiration from Five Sons brewers who had a booth offering
their local beers on tap. He was particularly pickled late in the game when most everyone had gone home.
Said
public official had been hounding the opposing Stompers verbally,
although he’d been picking on one in particular, catcher Daniel
Comstock … using the old ballpark slur of pathetically exaggerating
the player’s name: “Danny! Danny! ... Danny Boy!”
Some
fans never learn! At the crack of the bat, it was clear that Danny’s
line drive to left would clear the short 300-foot fence, scoring two more runs and putting the public official back into his seat
where he remained silent for the rest of the contest.
*
* *
Pacific
Association fans can follow their home team on podcasts and on line.
Keep
up with the current scores and stats:
