Unfazed by Arsonists: World Series Crew Overcomes An Unexpected Setback
Before the fire - Tournament officials used the Serra Field press box as "command central" until it went up in flames. Here, C.A.B.A. World Series national director Ed Carpenter (standing) huddles with scorekeeper Tom McNamara (center) and Bill Shields (foreground) as they keep tabs on game results at ten different sites.
Anyone staging a major baseball tournament – like the Continental Amateur Baseball Association’s High School World Series recently hosted by Euclid – has to be prepared for an occasional glitch or two. For example, the monsoon-like downpour that forced suspension of the Euclid team’s first night game after just one inning.
However, no one connected with the week-long, 50-team diamond classic could have expected anything like the blaze set by vandals three nights later that destroyed the World Series “command center” – the two-story brick structure at Memorial Park’s Paul Serra Field that housed not only the press box, but also the concession stand, restrooms, a key telephone communication line, controls for the electronic scoreboard, and the public address system at the lighted field behind Euclid City Hall.
The fire occurred about 4 a.m., July 27, prior to the start of the tournament’s double-elimination phase featuring the 16 teams that survived the three-day round-robin qualifier. Lost in the inferno were hundreds of dollars’ worth of food and beverages in the concession area, souvenir T-shirts, and the large team trophies and numerous individual awards that World Series officials had planned to present to the top teams and players at the closing ceremony.
Ed Carpenter, national director of the C.A.B.A. World Series, got a phone call at 4:30 a.m. delivering the bad news. After all the hard work that he and his loyal team had put in over the course of a year preparing for the event, it had to feel like a kick to the solar plexus.
Yet, with many of the key playoff contests, including the championship game, scheduled to be played at Serra Field, the tournament staff was determined to keep things on track. With the able assistance of Euclid Recreation Department personnel, they managed to guide the World Series to a successful conclusion.
“We always find a way to keep going,” said Carpenter. “The city workers did a great job enabling us to continue. They hosed things down, shoveled off debris from the fire, and made it possible for us to continue to use the field. We received great cooperation from [recreation director] Kathy Will and her recreation department crews.”
Euclid Mayor Bill Cervenik also praised the efforts of the recreation department personnel. “I’m very proud of what Kathy Will and her staff were able to do to keep the tournament going,” he said. “It is a tremendous tournament and the work they did to keep it going is a testament to how important we feel this tournament is. I also want to thank the tournament directors for all of their hard work.”
Will noted that tournament games resumed at Serra Field at 8 a.m. – just four hours after the fire occurred. The press box building, declared a total loss, has been demolished and will be rebuilt. The city had insurance coverage on the structure.
As for the vandals who started the fire, Cervenik asserted: “We will catch the miscreants.”
For playoff games at Serra Field in the final days of the World Series, a makeshift command center was set up under a small tent behind the fence along the first-base line. A portable speaker system was installed to enable game announcers to keep fans up to date, an important feature, since the fire knocked the electronic scoreboard out of commission. A rudimentary concession stand with a limited menu was set up. And with the grandstand seats roped off as potentially unsafe, folding chairs were brought in to accommodate fans, many of whom brought their own chairs with them.
Not surprisingly, one consequence of the fire was that gate receipts and concession sales took a substantial hit. “The entire inside of the building was gutted,” Carpenter noted. “Even the food stored in the concession-stand freezers was burned to a crisp.”
“It’s a shame,” he asserted, “since we need both gate receipts and concession revenues to help pay all the umpires and cover other expenses. I think our financial safety cushion, the money we carry over to support the next year’s World Series, is probably gone.”
All the same, he was pleased that the many people working behind the scenes were able to keep the World Series rolling along. “In trying times,” he emphasized, “sometimes good things happen because you’ve got good people.”
Those "good people" include at least five others who, like Carpenter, have been instrumental in staging the World Series in each of the 24 years that the event has been held in Euclid. They are:
Paul Serra: The former Euclid Panther baseball coach, for whom Serra Field is named, now coordinates the recreation department’s baseball and softball programs. His World Series duties included hiring the umpires and scheduling the ball fields and the scorers. He also pitched in as a scorekeeper when needed.
John Mocny: The long-time Euclid resident has been national commissioner of C.A.B.A. for more than a decade and is a former commissioner of the Euclid Boys League. During the World Series, he steadfastly tracked game results and entered them into a portable computer to update the C.A.B.A. website and keep all participants posted on the status of the tournament. Mocny, who spends the off-season revising the C.A.B.A. rule book, proudly notes that his grandson Eric, a student at The Ohio State University, developed the C.A.B.A. website.
Tom McNamara: The former Euclid city councilman, assistant law director, and Charter Review Commission chairman does “a lot of the year-round work,” Carpenter notes. “He contacts team coaches and gets all of the paperwork straight.” On opening night, McNamara did triple duty—working as official scorer and announcer for games at Serra Field, while also fielding phone calls on game results at nine other diamonds.
Dee Trobenter: A hardworking volunteer, Dee manages the Serra Field concession stand during the World Series and also recruits people to work at the gates.
Joe Perpar: The recreation department crew chief ensures that the Memorial Park ball diamonds are well maintained during the tournament.
“Without these key people, it would be impossible to hold the World Series,” says Carpenter. “Everybody knows what they have to do. And everyone just pitches in.”
Another key contributor who has been involved for quite a few years is Jack O’Breza, who did an outstanding job as scorekeeper and announcer for many of the games played in Euclid. The long-time Sun Newspapers sports writer and TV sports analyst, known familiarly as “The Breeze,” was working one of the games at Serra Field the day after the fire. Amid all the buzz over the bad news, he smiled and declared: “The good news is that we’re still playing baseball!”