verdugo288

Her name was Nancy.  We all called her “Nance.”  She was a mother to all of us.  Nothing got by Nance.  She knew what was going on at ALL times.  Yet she never said a word.  She knew about all of the hell-raising we were doing…..but she just kind of looked the other way.  You know, the original coaching staff was General and I.  But every year, even as the coaching staff was growing, we had an invisible coach.  One extra coach who nobody knew about.  Someone who wanted to win as much as we did.  Someone who probably knew the game more than we did.  Someone who did more behind the scenes for this Team than we could ever report in this Blog.  It was Nance.  She understood that “Boys will be Boys” and I think that’s why we all loved her.  If we got too out of line she would just kind of give us that look.  And then, when we got the message she was sending us with that look….she would always smile.

Even the day after we clinched our first playoff spot….when everyone was hungover and walking around the field with open flesh wounds from “Gar-burns” all she said was “Kelly, did you boys burn yourselves with cigars last night?”  I just kind of looked at her…guilty as hell…as if to say “what can I say?”

Nobody kept a scorebook like Nance.  I first met Nancy at the second game of our Team’s history in 1990 when we were playing Burbank.  We got everything ready, had the pre-game drill, and I was holding the scorebook when the game started.  I was going to keep score.  She looked at me and said “you want me to do that for you?”  I was happy she offered.  I just was wondering what she was going to write down in the book.  Being the idiot that I was….I figured she didn’t know what she was doing.  Well…we won the game…and it was a big win.  I went to look at the book after the game and it was the most MASTERFUL scorekeeping I had ever seen.  The kind of thing that could bring a tear to your eye.  I was humbled.  And then when I got to talking with her I realized this woman knew the game better than I did.  When BullOxen told me that his mother was his hitting coach…..I never tried to give him ANY advice as a hitter.  His swing was in good hands………..Bull used to say “nobody knows my swing better than my mom.”

And she was the coolest.  Smoking cigs….talking baseball.  What could be better than that?  I’ve been looking at the books for the last couple of weeks and I now know how lucky we were to have Nance on our side.  Perfect Books.  You see….she would even write in comments about what happened in the game if there was room in the scorebook.  Like when Fielder leaped over the catcher at Crespi…Nance wrote in “somehow he scored – caught in rundown – overthrow at third – jumped over catcher.”

Or when there was a bad call…Nance wouldn’t write in “Bad Call” in the book.  She would abbreviate it.  She would abbreviate it to “BFC.”  I’m sure you readers out there know what the ‘F” means.  Of course she would write that in ONLY if the call went against us.  “T7″…..”MB6″….”MT4″…”RUN T7″……….pitch count at the bottom…..everything a manager could dream of was right there in the book.  Here I am almost 20 years later…and thanks to Nance…I can open the scorebooks and can literally watch the game all over again.  Incredible. 

BullOxen and Calf are lucky to have such a great mom.  And I’m lucky she didn’t kill me for all the hell I raised……or take my job as Manager of The Team.  And we’re all lucky she took such great care of us.  Thank you Nance for all you did FOR ALL OF US.  And FROM ALL OF US………if we never said it to you…we can all say it now….We love you!!!!!!!!!