COMSTOCK PARK, Mich. — Ten years ago at the LMCU Ballpark, it was with the old and with the… even older?
When the Whitecaps updated their outfield video scoreboard in 2012, they decided to update their scoreboard as well. However, they wanted to make it unique, giving fans a free ticket to baseball history.
Thus, they landed on creating a manual dashboard.
According to Pro Baseball Reference, out of 120 minor league stadiums, only eight have a manual scoreboard. The Whitecaps, which are the High-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, are proud to be part of these teams.
“Old-school baseball fans love it,” said Jim Jarecki, the team’s vice president and general manager. “Traditionals love this stuff because it was like that before. So we gave it the best of the new and we gave it the best of the old.
The man who rushes to update the scoreboard almost every game is Jeff Cortright. If you ever go to a game, you can see his head pop out of the 10th inning window. That’s been his view for nine seasons now. He said he had the best seat in the house.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Cortright said. “I mean, I’ve been to Wrigley and I’ve been to Fenway but I’ve never done their manual dash tours. But having done that, it’s really cool to be a part of the baseball history.
Cortright may not be a Whitecaps player, but he still plays an important role on the team. He’s the one fans appreciate and he doesn’t take for granted.
“It would be very difficult,” he said. “Although my daughter, my nine-year-old daughter, said that as soon as she was old enough to do it, she would chase me away.”
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