I’m currently on what is hopefully a long climb up to some peak in the world of baseball. I don’t know exactly what I want to do in the game, but I want to be in and I want to be international, so the ship is pointing in the right direction now.
One of the many stops along the way was an official scorekeeping gig with the then-Fullerton Flyers of the Golden Baseball League in 2006. I got the job after shaking the GM’s hand and saying that I was itching to be back in baseball.
OK, I did have to show him some of the scorebooks I kept while calling Gaucho games on the radio. Really tough screening process, eh?
For those that may not know, the importance of the Official Scorekeeper ends right there with that inflated title. The scorer watches the game and writes down everything that happens, from base hits to ejections to thunderstorm, sprinkler, or Dizzy Bat Spin delays. The scorer makes sure that everyone knows the proper score and count at all times, and gives the OK for the announcer to say, “Your scoreboard totals are correct!” at the end of the game.
Perhaps the only real job-like thing about being the OFFICIAL SCOREKEEPER is deciding if a given event should be ruled a hit or an error. There are rules for that and the scorer’s opinion is required on these plays more often than not. Many events demand a ruling that is going to upset one side or the other, usually due to stats and their implications.
I brought along a time-tested Santa Barbara tradition (the bell) and, with my father’s help, tried a few press box innovations. The paddles with gigantic Hs and Es plastered on them worked great. The clip and cable system designed to pass notes over the partition wall to the broadcasters didn’t work so well.
We had a lot of fun that summer and I learned about one more facet of the game. I went straight by the book at first, but then realized that I couldn’t expect Golden League players to make Major League plays and would have to adjust the lens through which I watched the games.
And I was also told by my boss to be a homer, something I have long struggled with. Home players get hits, home pitchers get helped out. Hey, that goes on in MLB, why shouldn’t it happen in the Golden League?
Plus, these players were fighting for attention from scouts from organized baseball; three more hits and Player Abel is a .300 hitter, one bad inning off the books and Pitcher Baker is lights-out at 2.53.
The boss reserved the right to overturn a call, and I let him have it. It made it even easier for me to be objective, knowing that it wouldn’t be me caving into the home crowd.
One night, however, tested my temper and my mettle, and I can’t believe that I don’t have anything written about it in English. I can’t find a box score or article about it on the Internet, so all I have is this entry I wrote on my webpage on the Japanese answer to myspace.
WARNING: Translation of a translation with two years of perspective thrown in:
I didn’t know there could be such a game. Last Thursday, the Flyers played the Long Beach Armada, and I was in the press box with my scorebook and paddles as usual.
The crowd of 2,197 was the largest since Opening Day, and Thursday $1 Beer Night had more than a little to do with that.
To start things off, two players and both managers were ejected before the third inning was over!
The Long Beach starter made it to the bottom of the eighth with a no-hitter intact, but there was controversy even up to that point. In the first inning, I had awarded a Flyers player a hit on a dribbler to third that the third baseman couldn’t handle. The Armada coaches looked up at the box, and my boss came in and told me to change the call.
Per our agreement, I did without and argument. It was a hit in the Golden League in my eyes, but changing it to an error was water off a duck’s back.
The Armada defense put together eight sloppy innings. The pitcher handed out four walks and dosed two guys, and the defense made three errors, including the one from the first inning.
So nine Flyers reached base, and though none of them scored or got a hit, it certainly didn’t feel like a special game to me. Oh, how I underestimated the importance of that zero on the board for the 2,197 in attendance!
Back to the eighth: the Armada pitcher retired the first two Flyers easily. The third hitter of the inning lifted a fly ball into shallow left field. The left fielder and shortstop both hustled after the ball, and the shortstop called the outfielder off.
The left fielder peeled off and let short have it. It was a very tough play for him and the left fielder should have taken it. The shortstop’s back was to the plate and he was tracking the ball over his left shoulder until the very last step he took, which he used to turn his body toward the plate.
The ball wasn’t where he expected it to be and was going to land in front of him, so he stuck his glove out to catch it as his weight was pulling him away from the ball due to the momentum from his long run. The ball struck the heel of his glove, and ball and boy hit the ground at the same time.
A lot happened, but in real time, he never stopped running and was still moving away from the plate when he took that last awkward step and made a stab at the ball.
I think a Major Leaguer makes that play, and that it would have been much easier for the left fielder. The rulebook doesn’t have a stipulation for questionable baseball instincts, though, and the scorer has to call it as he sees it happen.
I raised the H paddle. The scoreboard operator flashed the bulb for HIT and changed the zero to a one. The no-hitter was gone.
I had made calls like that all season long. An error in MLB is a hit in the Golden League on many occasions. Unfortunately, this one came right in the middle of a potential no-hitter on Beer Night.
The ejected Long Beach manager barged into the press box and got right in my face, screaming, “What the **** is that? Don’t you know he’s throwing a no-hitter? This kid is trying to make history and you #*$&@&(#)@*…”
He was closer to me than Lou Piniella gets to umpires when he goes out to argue. I sat there and looked straight ahead. I hadn’t thought about the no-hitter when I made that call, it wasn’t in my job description and it wasn’t in the rules. I called what I saw and I’ll take that to my grave.
Well, the throng of 2,197 liked the call a lot less than the manager and didn’t hesitate to tell me about it through the window that I always left open to enjoy the pleasant weather:
“Don’t you know baseball?”
“You have too much pride, you #@#*$&$!”
“I was a pro baseball player for nine years, and that’s an error!”
This was all happening simultaneously, and to this day I am surprised that I didn’t scream at anybody or throw any punches. The wrath of 2,197 people plus one manager all at once was a lot to take, and I didn’t have any help from anybody in the press box for what seemed like an eternity.
Few people have had a couple thousand rabid humans out for their hide all at once right in front of their eyes, and it’s pretty damn scary. I had a sudden appreciation and empathy for Steve Bartman, who endured 20 times what I did (at the ballpark alone, not counting the rest of his witness-protected life) over something much more important.
Still, I didn’t want to change it. To call that an error would have been a lie.
As the members of the press box closed the windows and shooed people out of the fishbowl, the boss came in and told me to change the call. I did. I was alive, and the people had their precious no-hitter. There was still a lot of game left, though.
The bottom of the ninth rolled around and the Flyers trailed 2-0, still looking for their first hit. The leadoff man struck out. The second guy tapped a routine ground ball to the shortstop, who air-mailed it over the first baseman’s head for the fourth error of the night.
I raised the E paddle and nearly choked to death when I saw the ONE underneath the H column on the scoreboard. That single digit pierced the night sky and pointed at me like a dagger.
I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t move, and I screamed but no words came out. I turned to the board operator.
It was obviously an error and obviously a mistake, but the crowd was having none of it and charged the press box again, pounding on the closed windows with their fists. The operator didn’t realize what she had done, and probably still doesn’t. She was staring off into space, her job done until the next pitch.
I had used up every shred of tolerance and count-to-ten endurance in the eighth inning. I lost it and screamed at her:
“IT’S AN ERROR!!!! IT’S AN ERROR!!!! WHAT THE **** ARE YOU DOING, IT’S AN ERROR!!!!”
It got changed and the game continued, but I was a wreck and the press box was very uncomfortable. Wouldn’t you know it, the next hitter spun the pitcher’s cap around with a sharp single up the middle to end the whole mess.
The first hit was up on the board for the fourth and final time on that magical night.
Now, with one out and runners on first and second in a 2-0 ballgame, the Long Beach pitching coach summoned a reliever to close out the game. He walked a man to load the bases and then set the next hitter down on strikes.
With two outs and the bases full, the hitter lofted a long fly ball to left center that had both outfielders on the run. The center fielder left his feet and caught the ball a half-inch off the sod, sliding all the way to the warning track with a fantastic game-saving catch.
So why did the left fielder continue running toward the fence? Our eyes had fooled us - the ball had barely eluded the reach of the center fielder’s glove and skittered away from the left fielder.
The Flyers rushed around the bases with their first, second, and third runs of the ball game to take it, 3-2. With the near no-hitter and surrounding controversy, the multitude of errors and shining plays, and an extremely joyful (and painful) walk-off situation, this was by far the wildest, greatest baseball game I had ever laid eyes upon.
It was a circus and a comedy. I apologized to the board operator for screaming at her, but I don’t know how I could possibly have handled it any better. Anyone who tells me they could keep their head after being rushed by thousands of angry people TWICE in one night is quite possibly reptilian.
It was awfully short-sighted of the fans to react that way, even about the first call. It was not a well-pitched game; the pitcher was not dealing at all. A no-hitter is great, but speaking as obejctively as I can, the game up until the eighth inning was not that special.
They wanted dollar beers and a zero up on the board. They did not care about what was actually happening on the field. I think there’s something terribly wrong with that.
I know in my heart that, taking the whole season and the whole league into consideration, I made the right call in the eighth inning. But should I have lied to save the no-hitter? I really don’t know.
Put anybody in that ballpark in my seat for that play, and it’s an error simply because of the zero on the board. But is that right?