10/24/2018
By Ed Brennen
While there won’t be any former River Hawks on the field for the World Series, UML does have a few connections in the Fenway Park press box. Alum Chaz Scoggins ’70 will be the official scorer for Game 2. And if the series comes back to Fenway for a Game 6, Bob Ellis from the Athletic Communications office will handle the official scorekeeping duties.
Ellis, who is the radio voice of River Hawks hockey and the play-by-play announcer for the Lowell Spinners, has worked as a scorekeeper for the Red Sox for the past 10 years, handling about 20 games a season. While he has worked in the divisional round of the playoffs the past two seasons, this would be his first World Series game.
“I suspect that there will be both an electricity and tension amidst a nervous party atmosphere,” Ellis says. “It will become an emotional roller coaster.”
A native of the Bronx, Ellis is a lifelong Yankees fan. When he was 12, he attended Game 3 of the 1964 World Series, when the Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1, on a walk-off home run by Mickey Mantle in the bottom of the ninth. Ellis says his standing-room ticket cost $4; standing room tickets for the World Series today go for more than $600.
While Ellis has despised the Dodgers since their days in Brooklyn, and he considers himself a fan of the American League in general, he always sets personal feelings aside when he’s scoring a game.
“The scorer’s job is to accurately record what happens in the game,” he says. “I am history’s representative and I take that seriously. I have no trouble setting aside any rooting interest and marvel at what a wonderful game baseball is,” he says.