But the Chelmer woman racks up an amazing milestone this year as she celebrates her 50th year as a baseball scorer. Since she was lined into the role way back in 1959 at the Windsor Baseball Club team following her softball games, Mrs Connors has gone on to become one of the most respected and lovable people across the Australian baseball community. Sure the intense sport of baseball needs coaches, players and umpires; but without the hard-working scorers like Mrs Connors, baseball could not continue to operate. The popular American sport is one of the most difficult competitions in the world to score and record game and player statistics. But for Mrs Connors, who has dedicated most weekends of her life to scoring, it’s more than a passion. "I love scoring, it's because I love the game," the Bulldogs life member said. "You’re a part of the game and the team and it's my weekend activity away from work."
Mrs Connors, who is a teachers-Aid at Graceville State School, began scoring at the young age of 16 and now is one of the longest serving volunteers remaining in the sport. She moved across to the Bulldogs in 1978 to help score her son Alan's under-12 matches. These days she limits herself to just scoring the Bulldogs' Greater Brisbane Major A-Grade Baseball competition home matches at Atthows Park, Darra. But she also helps teach newcomers how to score as part of her role as the state director of scoring. "I was taught from the best – Dot Holloway, who was the Claxton Shield Queensland representative scorer from the 1950s to the early 1970s," said Mrs Connors, who is an internationally qualified baseball scorer.
"Because I was so young when I first started scoring, she was an excellent help and now I’m doing the same." While coaching and umpire positions are generally fielded by fathers, mothers and girlfriends are mostly the ones behind the net scribbling on the score sheets. Mrs. Connors encourages every baseball lover to learn how to score. She said it wasn’t that hard to score once you had learnt the basics, but she did have a scoring pet-hate. "Some scorers tend to like lots of colour (pens and pencils) when they score," she explains. "I reckon that means they’re not concentrating – the number one rule to scoring is to always watch the game." Simple advice, but Mrs Connors must be right to have had the privilege to score on the biggest sporting stage in the world.
"The biggest highlight of my life was scoring at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games," she said. "It was such an honour, you don’t get much recognition in scoring, but that was the closet thing to the best recognition."
Mrs. Connors had to partake in a two-hour exam and score at the 1999 Intercontinental Cup, which was a pre-Sydney Olympic tournament, before the final cut to only 12 scorers was made. Mrs. Connors, and fellow Bulldogs scorer, Paula Kenning, were the only two from Queensland chosen to score at the historic Sydney Olympic Games and received a medallion for their work at the event. Mrs. Connors treasures the special token, but recalls the first Olympic baseball game she scored as the proudest moment of her scoring career. "It was the best feeling to see my name as a technical official on the big screen," she said. "They also put my country, obviously Australia next to my name and the whole crowd cheered and that’s when it hit me – I’m a part of this." Despite scoring baseball for 50 years, Mrs Connors doesn’t know when she will be putting away the pen and score sheet for the last time.
"I'm still enjoying it; I've made lots of friends across the country by doing this so until the day it's not fun anymore comes, I'll still be here on Sundays," Mrs Connors happily said. For the Bulldogs sake, they hope she never leaves the kennel, because when that day comes, the Western Districts Baseball Club will never be the same again.
