Gregorio Sablan: “In the Northern Mariana Islands, as in the rest of America, baseball is the national pastime. And no single person in…”

“In the Northern Mariana Islands, as in the rest of America, baseball is the national pastime. And no single person in our islands' history did more to establish and maintain the sport of baseball than Francisco M. Palacios. Yet he did it without playing a single game. The American military brought baseball to our islands during World War II. Along with the rifles and planes came gloves, bats, and balls for the soldiers' recreation. Schoolboys and young men on our islands picked up the game naturally from the military. Then play became formalized. Teams were organized around neighborhoods, and the first league was formed in 1953. As a young man, Palacios would walk the 3 miles to Garapan to watch the Sunday afternoon games. He wanted to play but didn't have the skill to make the starting nine of his district team in Chalan Kanoa. So, sitting on the bench in the dugout, Palacios decided to contribute by becoming the scorekeeper. He learned the art of scorekeeping from a Navy man stationed on Saipan, and a look at Palacios' score sheets reveals a military preciseness and meticulousness. The system he used was invented a hundred years ago earlier by American Henry Chadwick, who is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Soon after becoming his team's scorekeeper, Palacios began keeping score for the entire league, and he remained the official scorekeeper for every baseball league on Saipan until his retirement in 2006--a span of six decades.”