Supersized scoreboards, like the panoramic 170-foot by 37-foot tote board at the Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Field, are a required visual attack at almost every baseball stadium in America.
Supersized boards. Obtrusive scoreboards. Exploding scoreboards.
It was old-time Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck (his autobiography, “Veeck as in Wreck,” is still required reading on the baseball history syllabus) who created the “exploding” scoreboard.
Veeck was sent to wander the real “field of dreams” for all eternity in 1986. But he was a man who loved baseball and didn’t see any reason to take it so seriously that it couldn’t be fun. He made pinch hitter Eddie Gaedel a legend and perpetual trivia answer by sending the 3-foot, 7-inch, 60-pound one-day-contract player to the plate to enhance the chances of a walk. At that size, Gaedel had a tiny strike zone that Bob Gibson or Greg Maddox themselves could not have hit, though Gibson might have plunked him on the head just out of principle.
Veeck, who was running the St. Louis Browns (now Baltimore Orioles), hired Gaedel for $100 and told the undersized batter that he had snipers placed on the roof of the stadium lest the little player, whose uniform number was ⅛, take a swing and risk an out. Gaedel was supposed to walk, and after four balls, the Incredible Shrinking Pinch Hitter was sent to first base. His career was over. (Put this in your trivia stash — the pitcher who walked Gaedel was Bob Kain of the Detroit Tigers.)
Gaedel never returned to the game, as party-pooper Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick said all player contracts had thenceforth to be approved by the Commissioner’s office. Gaedel received no such approval.
But as usual digression is sinking the point of this missive.
Anyway, Veeck had the strange idea that baseball must be a merry amusement, not just one focused on scoring runs and striking out batters and winning and losing games.
He may have been the inventor of the now-ubiquitous “fan experience,” which often has less to do with the Major League game itself than it does getting the kids to the baseball-themed bouncy house on the concourse.
Veeck’s “exploding” scoreboard in Chicago, with its spinning lights and fireworks, began what is now a phantasmagoria of scoreboards across the game, and the new board at the Clearwater Threshers’ BayCare Ballpark is a beaut. It has all the colors and lights of an opium dream, and more information — including photos of the player at bat — than you’ll need to occupy a full game. Players should be careful on official photo day, lest their huge image reveal a 4-inch-long piece of spinach stuck to the tooth of their 10-foot scoreboard portrait.
But the new boards serve the purpose of an old-fashioned paper program, except without the scorecard and pencil. Lots of info and, sometimes, actually useful data.
At Dunedin’s TD Ballpark, Blue Jays management has been fiddling all season with the information posted on their board, which is smaller than the BayCare display.
There are plenty of facts — maybe a bit too many to be cramped into and off to the board.
For example, one recent post at a Dunedin-Lakeland game informed fans that Joey Votto, the retired Cincinnati Reds first baseman, is Dunedin first baseman Brock Tibbitts’ favorite player. What? Is George “Boomer” Scott so far back in history that he gets no consideration? Scott ended his career at age 35 in 1977 after sipping a cup of coffee with New York’s Evil Empire and previously having established tenure in Boston, Milwaukee, Kansas City. Scott hit 271 career round-trippers; Votto 356. There you have it.
Dunedin’s display also provides information about where players grew up.
We’re informed that Dunedin second baseman Jude Warwick is from Chicago suburb Downers Grove, Illinois, but it leaves open the question as to whether as a teen he hung out at the giant Gurnee Mills Mall less than an hour away from his hometown.
If you’re planning a vacation in the Dominican Republic, Dunedin shortstop Raimundo De Los Santos might be able to provide tips on entertainment in his baseball hometown of San Pedro de Macoris.
We learn players’ educational backgrounds. Lakeland’s Beau Ankeney went to Loyola Marymount college. Dunedin outfielder Nick Dumesnil attended California Baptist in Riverside, California.
One missing factoid during a recent homestand was perhaps irrelevant to anyone but Lakeland Flying Tigers fans. Shortstop Jordan Yost is the grandson of former Major Leaguer Ned Yost, a backup catcher who hit a heroic pinch hit homer in Boston for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982. The clout helped send the Brewskis to the World Series against some other team Milwaukee fans do not speak of. Kindly, anyway. Yost later earned a career 1,203-1,341 record as manager of the Brewers and Kansas City Royals.
Does any of this make us better-informed citizens? Not likely.
But do the nuggets of truth on the Giganto-Board provide fodder for fan chatter?
Of course! Any spiral-eyed baseball fan knows that such information must be researched to the granular level and used for discussion between innings, between pitches, at bar rooms and at boring little kids’ birthday parties.
If you’re at the game, between discussions you’ll want to find out what’s happening in the game itself.
That’s natural.
Just check the scoreboard.