In 1982, San Francisco Giants outfielder Darrell Evans -- No. 41, for those keeping score at home -- was sitting on his back porch with his wife when they saw what they believed to be a UFO. Evans later said that the sighting “[D]efinitely helped my career. It gave me something to think about besides myself. It sparked things for me.” Here’s hoping that you soon experience your own equivalent of Evans’ UFO encounter, something so unpredictable and momentous that it creates heretofore unconsidered possibilities. I’m not saying that you will find such a thing in this, the 41st edition of the Ben’s Biz Beat newsletter… but you might!
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KEEPING SCORE: A PERSONAL TESTIMONY |
Dick Devans prepares his scorecard prior to the first game at “new” Yankee Stadium. |
In last week’s newsletter, I asked you (yes, you) to answer the following question: “Do you keep score at Minor League Baseball games?”
No one wrote in to say “No,” which leads me to believe that everyone keeps score at Minor League games. That’s great! For now, however, I’d like to highlight the email I received from a reader by the name of Dick Devans. This is a testimonial to the joys of scorekeeping, but it’s also so much more:
As a 9-year old lad, it was my dearly departed grandfather who taught me how to score a baseball game using a plain sheet of yellow tablet paper. We would neatly ‘strike’ vertical lines using a wooden ruler and sharpened pencil to create the individual columns for each inning while skipping horizontal lines to enter the lineups and subsequent changes. This was back in 1959 and the early ‘60s, long before games were televised with the frequency they are today, or slightly before I ever attended a game at any level of professional ball. With regularity, my granddad and I would diligently prepare our scoresheets in advance of another game that we planned listening to on the “Home of Champions [New York Yankees] radio network.”
Having been blessed to attend over several hundred MLB games during the course of 60-plus years, rarely, if ever, have I not kept a scorecard of each encounter. After Minor League Baseball departed all of northeastern Pennsylvania in the mid-1950s, the opportunity to view any level of pro ball locally wasn’t an option until 1989 when Scranton/Wilkes-Barre became the Phillies' Triple-A affiliate. Although business and/or travel demands limited my attendance to only a half dozen or so games each season between ‘89 and 2006, I became a season-ticket holder in 2007 when the Yankees transferred their Triple-A affiliation to S/WB. From that time forward I have been at most of the games and have an extensive collection of scorecards as validation.
From about my time as a teenager, the thought of serving as an “Official Scorer” always intrigued me. Being a lifelong student of the game and its rules, I designed, developed and now print my own custom scorecards for each game. Unbeknownst to me, my resolute interests were being closely observed by members of S/WB’s gameday managerial staff.
Upon my 2016 retirement from the corporate world, the club subsequently hired me to score the game via (Dak-Stats) data entry. Serving in various booth capacities over my first two years, I finally achieved my ultimate objective. In 2018, I became an International League “Official Scorer” and now garner a majority of those assignments.
I truly consider myself most fortunate to be afforded such opportunity. I have only one regret, my granddad isn’t alive to share with me what he once started! Rest in peace, Pop.
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If you're keeping score at home, this page from Dick Devans’ Scranton/Wilkes-Barre scorebook gets a 10. |
Thanks to Dick for sending in such an emotionally resonant piece of correspondence. I’ll share more “Do you keep score?” responses next week. If you’d like to add your proverbial two cents, send me an email: benjamin.hill@mlb.com
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This is Josh Jackson, demanding to be dealt into the hands of all of you out there in newsletter land. I'm the ace host of The Show Before the Show podcast’s Ghosts of the Minors segment, in which I challenge you to identify a historical Minor League club hiding among a set of phonies.
In the last episode, we chewed over the Centralia Pets. This week, I ask you which of these teams would have been a podcast favorite in the Minors of yesteryear:
The Yosemite Sams
The Grand Rapids Joshers The Tyler Tylerians - The South Bend Bens
For the answer, tune in next time, won’t you?
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HOPELESSLY OBSCURE MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TRIVIA! |
At what long-defunct Minor League ballpark did Reggie Jackson hit his first professional home run?
Hint: He hit it on the road, as a member of the also long-defunct Lewiston (Idaho) Broncs.
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LISTEN UP: JOHNNY DOSKOW JOINS ‘THE SHOW BEFORE THE SHOW’ PODCAST |
Last week’s newsletter included a brief item about Johnny Doskow, recently added to the Oakland A’s broadcast team after 30 years in the Minor Leagues. But, clearly, this bit of news deserves more than a brief item. It deserves a full podcast interview, as well as an accompanying MiLB.com article, and that’s just what it now has. Listen to, or read about, how Johnny got his callup following a Minor League broadcasting career that began with the 1993 Cedar Rapids Kernels.
LISTEN TO JOHNNY DOSKOW ON THE SHOW BEFORE THE SHOW HERE
READ ABOUT JOHNNY DOSKOW’S CAREER JOURNEY HERE
Speaking of Minor League broadcasters getting MLB callups: Keith Raad and Pat McCarthy have both been added to the New York Mets’ radio team. Raad was formerly with the Brooklyn Cyclones, while McCarthy (son of Phillies broadcaster Tom McCarthy) had been in the employ of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
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SPEAR YE, SPEAR YE: LAKE WINNEBAGO SHANTYMEN EMERGE FROM THE ICE |
The Appleton-based Wisconsin Timber Rattlers announced that they will play as the Lake Winnebago Shantymen on July 29. This regionally specific alternate identity was announced on Feb. 2, “in conjunction with spearing season in the state of Wisconsin.” Yes, spearing. “Shantymen” is a reference to the portable shanties hauled onto the ice of Lake Winnebago during sturgeon spearfishing season, which runs for two weeks each February. The shanties have an opening in the bottom through which a hole in the ice is cut, and the sturgeon are speared through this hole.
If you thought this was the most primitive fishing-based alternate identity in the Minors, then you thought wrong. The Tulsa Drillers’ “Noodlers” alter-ego is an homage to the art and science of catching a catfish, by the mouth, with one’s hands. Better than the other way around, I suppose.
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The Carolina Mudcats’ team name is a slang term for catfish, so it comes as no surprise that they serve it at the ballpark. Their Catfish Po Boy, featuring catfish that were presumably not caught by hand, is topped with the alliterative combo of bacon bits and boom boom sauce. |
HOPELESSLY OBSCURE MINOR LEAGUE TRIVIA ANSWER! |
Reggie Jackson hit his first professional home run on June 26, 1966, at Bethel Park in Eugene, Ore. This historic blast was for naught, as Jackson’s Lewiston Broncs were defeated by the hometown Eugene Emeralds, 6-3.
Bonus trivia: Reggie Jackson isn’t the only member of the 500 Home Run Club to have hit his first professional home run on the road while competing in the Northwest League. Ken Griffey Jr., playing for the Bellingham Mariners, went yard for the first time on June 17, 1987, at Everett Memorial Stadium (currently known as Funko Field, home of the Everett AquaSox).
To submit a trivia question for possible inclusion in a future newsletter, email benjamin.hill@mlb.com.
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