Steve Tipa has been a fixture in right field at Yankee Stadium for years with his clipboard and his homemade score sheet.
This was a playoff game, after all, so Steve Tipa planned to break out the colored pens again in the right-field bleachers Tuesday night when he began scoring Game 4 of the American League division series on his homemade sheet. Red ink for the Boston Red Sox, naturally, and black as always for the Yankees.
Tipa scores every game at Yankee Stadium, which is why the fans there long ago christened him Statman. Sitting in Section 204, far from the official scorer in the press box, Tipa has been meticulously marking strikeouts and passed balls on his loose, lined papers since late in the 1980 season. He wears thick glasses and listens to the radio broadcasts on large headphones — accessories that only add to his distinctive look.
Tipa, 59, from Fresh Meadows, Queens, records just the basics on his scorecard, nothing fancy. He talks batting average and earned run average. Tipa doesn’t really believe in the complex sabermetrics that are part of the contemporary game.
“I don’t need that stuff,” he said. “Some of it is relevant, but some of it is confusing. You simply look at it with your eyes, watch the player every day. Somebody like Didi Gregorius might not rank that high in fielding with sabermetrics, but if you watch him, you know differently.”
Nine years ago, Tipa lost his left hand in a trash compactor accident while working for the New York City Housing Authority. After three surgeries, he received a modest, six-figure settlement and then disability payments, which fund his season tickets.
Rather than slowing him down, the mishap allowed him to focus more on his score keeping. Without a job, he had more free time for the games.
Tipa did not miss a single contest this season. He was absent for one game last year, when he dutifully attended an engagement party for a relative on Staten Island. It was Aug. 27, Tipa remembered wistfully, a 10-1 victory over Seattle.
“Tanaka was pitching, and I found a TV in a hotel bar,” he said.
Less permanent are his scoring notations, which are written in pencil during the regular season because of changes he is sometimes forced to make.
At times, the elements interfere with Tipa’s craft. This season was particularly brutal. When it rained too hard, he sought shelter under a stadium roof. He had to stop scoring a game in April when his fingers grew too numb from the cold. He completed the job off the television when he got home, because he always records the games.
There are some tricks to scoring from the bleachers, where not every resource is available and not every play is visible, especially for someone who, like Tipa, does not have a smartphone. The official scorers have access to the starting lineups hours beforehand. Tipa must copy the lineups onto his sheet off the giant scoreboard in the outfield.
“The lineups come up 10 minutes after the hour before the first pitch,” he said. “When they do, I have to be quick. They don’t keep them up there for long.”
Tipa has fun guessing the attendance hours before the official announcement comes over the public address system late in the game. Twice during his long career as a fan, he predicted that five-figure number on the button. Marking down the umpires on his sheet is more difficult, since they are not necessarily recognizable.
While his scoring is painstaking, Tipa is not nearly so thorough about filing the completed sheets after each game. Decades worth of score sheets are packed away in different places, almost randomly, throughout his Queens apartment. He says he will deal with all that at some undetermined date.
His obsession might seem a lonely one. But Tipa is an honorary member of the Bleacher Creatures in neighboring Section 203, though he prefers to sit across from them, in the shade under the upper deck. His brother, Robert, comes to about 20 games a year to offer company. Still, this is a solo operation, and a relatively expensive one.
If the Yankees defeat Boston in this series to advance, Tipa will find a way to buy the $64 bleacher tickets for the American League Championship Series, and to cover the $138 for each World Series game.
By Tuesday, Tipa was not particularly optimistic about this series after the 16-1 disaster in Game 3.
“I’ll be there if they advance,” he said. “I don’t spend a lot on other things. I live a modest life. I love baseball and I love the Yankees. I get to express my joy and my frustration at the stadium.”
His favorite regular-season memory is from July 1,2004.
“The Jeter leap game,” Tipa said, thinking back to Derek Jeter’s headlong catch in the stands. “That game had everything. And of course it was against the Red Sox.”
Tipa has chronicled his emotions, by shorthand notation, 81 times during the 2018 regular season and now again in the playoffs. He is unfazed by the notion that he could sit back, have a beer and easily access the completed box scores on any number of websites.
“Scoring keeps me in the game, keeps my mind from wandering,” he said. “And besides, I don’t own a smartphone or a computer.
“I may have to get one of those someday.”
