{"id":255858,"date":"2017-07-07T06:06:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T20:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=255858"},"modified":"2017-07-07T06:06:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T20:06:05","slug":"baseball-scoreboard-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/baseball-scoreboard-unveiled\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball scoreboard unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"
Government, sports, and IT&E officials do the ceremonial ribbon cutting for the newly installed baseball scoreboard at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield yesterday. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The long wait for a scoreboard at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios is over.<\/p>\n

IT&E installed the equipment last month and held a ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday with no less than Gov. Ralph DLG Torres attending the inauguration and was joined by Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang, other government officials, and members and officers of the CNMI sports community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s long overdue and I am very sure our athletes will appreciate the new scoreboard. Thank you to IT&E for their continued support, not only to the local government, but also to the sports community,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to IT&E for seeing the need to have a scoreboard at the \u2018Tan Ko\u2019 field. It\u2019s nice to have a big board up there so people watching the game can understand what\u2019s happening right away instead of checking the score sheets,\u201d Apatang said. \u201cI am sure \u2018Tan Ko\u2019 will be happy to find out that we have a scoreboard now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTan Ko\u201d is the long-time statistician of baseball games at the pitch that is named after him. The CNMI Sports Hall of Famer\u2019s grandson Rep. John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan) remembers how the old scoreboard was still functioning when his grandfather used to take stats of the matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was more than 20 years ago, I was still playing for the Hustlers in the Senior League. It\u2019s always nice to check the scoreboard each time our team scores or our pitcher makes strikeouts. It makes the crowd loud, as they count and urge our pitcher to get the third out,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n

For Michael White, president of Northern Marianas Sports Association, which manages and operates the baseball field and other facilities at the Oleai Sports Complex, the installation of the new scoreboard is very timely, as the CNMI will be hosting the Pacific Mini Games in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball, which is the island\u2019s first love, will be our featured sports when we host the Mini Games in 2012 and the scoreboard will be the centerpiece of the competition,\u201d White said. \u201cThank you IT&E for your generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

IT&E chief executive officer James Oehlerking joined government and sports officials in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly installed baseball scoreboard and reiterated the company\u2019s long-term commitment to the CNMI and its improvement projects, be it in sports or other areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to finally get this installation done. We actively support a variety of sports in the CNMI, as well as other activities on the islands. We will continue to expand our contributions to the CNMI and remain committed to its various sports programs,\u201d said Oehlerking, a Chicago Cubs fan.<\/p>\n

IT&E Saipan general manager Rose Soledad echoed Oehlerking\u2019s statements, saying the company will have more partnerships with the community. One of them is the NMI Museum of History and Culture, as IT&E will start coordinating with its management to find out how the telecommunication company could assist with the museum\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long wait for a scoreboard at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios is over. IT&E…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":255861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[46,17488,26,6051],"class_list":["post-255858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ceremony","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cnmi","tag-james-oehlerking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}