David Schoen was the guy who flipped the numbers on the manual scoreboard in the outfield at Minute Maid Park. He watched the games through a peephole.
HOUSTON — If you’ve ever been to a Houston Astros game at Minute Maid Park, you may have noticed the left field scoreboard with other MLB games. David Schoen was the guy behind there manually updating the scores.
“He is kinda the hand behind the manual scoreboard, he is the guy who flips the letters,” his wife Tracy Schoen said. Kind of like the Vanna White of baseball except no one could see him.
Tracy said the scoreboard operators sit in a dark, tight space but they find ways to watch the games.
“Most of them, the guys, have found a little hidey hole where they can look in and see what’s out there,” she explained. “A peephole where staffers can peek in on the game, which is what David used to do.”
“Used to do” because everything changed in 2018.
“David had a seizure, an aphasic seizure where you can’t speak,” Tracy said.
It was brain cancer. After a long, hard battle, he died in March of 2022.
Tracy was going through his Astros souvenirs and memorabilia a few months later where she discovered he had stashed their wills.
“It was here with all the things that were precious to him,” she said.
Tracy’s attorney framed one simple sentence from the will for her.
“I want Tracy to have everything.”
She believes David is still with her. And with the team.
“I know there is an angel in the outfield,” Tracy said. “Remember when the Astros won the World Series last year? I know when Yordan hit that 450-foot home run, I know David was out there sending it over the wall.
David’s co-workers signed an old scoreboard tile for her with a piece of it missing.
“This is what the tiles look like when a baseball hits it,” Tracy explained.
They also had a special surprise for her. Inside Minute Maid, on the Astros Mission Control Wall of Honor, David’s name has just been added.
“He loved this game, he loved the people he worked with. I miss him every single day.”
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