The coolest view at Coors Field is albeit the cruelest. Out in right field, inside the 3-foot-wide quarters behind the manually operated scoreboard, the only way to catch a catch is to peek through space between the oversized 8 and F, or perhaps squint through the finger hole on the panel that reads NYY.
Liz Berlin wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the best seat in the house. Even though she’s often standing. And even though the only major-league game she doesn’t have to pay attention to is the one she’s actually attending. Berlin and friend Nora Donehoo are responsible for operating the old-timey Rockies scoreboard, hanging the team initials, score, inning and pitcher number of up to 14 other games.
“I came out here and I just fell in love with it,” said Berlin, who began her seventh season at Friday’s home opener. “It’s just really fun, we just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy it.”
The pope will give up his job before these ladies give up theirs. And even though we only know their fingers, these are two of the people who make the stadium a ballpark. In a place with huge video boards, thumping hip-hop music and modern in-game gimmicks, the manually operated scoreboard, as Rockies pitcher Eddie Butler put it, “Gives you a nostalgia feel. It brings you back to how the game used to be.”
Back here, in this 3-foot-wide chamber, the numbers hang from hooks on the wall to the right — 1s next to 2s — and to the left is the scoreboard itself. The two ladies are constantly peeking at a television, computer or cellphone to get score updates. During the fourth inning Friday, while Berlin and I chatted, Donehoo would holler, say, “Minnesota two!” And Berlin would hustle over and replace a 16-inch by 20-inch 1, next to MIN. She placed the finger holes from the green, wooden 2 upon metal spokes attached to the scoreboard, making a ca-chunk that sounded like something out of Fenway, 1950. Some of the wood panels are cracked. The one with BOS is so weathered, Donehoo said “you can almost see right through it.”
Berlin loves her Rockies, furiously clapping when they enhanced their lead against the Chicago Cubs. Donehoo, please keep this quiet, is a Cubs fan. Her father has had season tickets at Wrigley since 1984. Before Friday’s game, she snapped him pictures of the opening ceremony, an angle few in Chicago, or Denver, would see.
There are perils to this job. It gets sauna-hot in the summer — “It kind of feels like you’re in a plywood shed,” Donehoo said — so Berlin brings in swamp coolers and a mini-fridge. And sometimes, when a line drive slaps the scoreboard, “It sounds like a shotgun going off,” said Donehoo, a baseball fan who was married last August at home plate at Coors Field. “It’ll startle you. It mostly happens during batting practice. I’m actually the only person who’s actually been hit. When it was really hot and we were setting up, we used to leave the panels out to air it out — not anymore! One day a ball went ffffooooom! Right into my shin. My leg like quadrupled in size.”
But it’s just so much fun back here. It’s like a secret passageway. It feels like you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. And when you catch the right angle, it’s a glorious view — the green field expanding in front of your eyes, the stoic Carlos Gonzalez suddenly bursting toward a batted ball.
“CarGo actually came back here one time when he was on the disabled list,” Berlin said of the Rockies’ star right fielder. “He goes, ‘You know, I’m just curious what it’s like back here.’ It was batting practice and he was taking off some of the panels and picking on some of the guys out there. So, of course, they were throwing balls at him. And then he left. But he said, ‘Hey, this is actually pretty cool back here.’ “
It really is.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
