Hall of Fame Lineage:Senior Suzanne Hornsby is score keeper for the Baylor baseball team. She is also a descendant of baseball hall of famer, Rogers Hornsby.
photo by Barbara Kennedy, Baylor School
Eight decades ago, baseball hall of famer Rogers Hornsby managed the Chattanooga Lookouts at Historic Engel Stadium.
Today one of his descendants stays close to the game across town as the scorekeeper for the Baylor School baseball team.
Known as "The Rajah", Hornsby, a charter member of the Chattanooga Lookouts hall of fame, was born 114 years ago today - April 27, 1896 - in Winters, Texas.
"Rogers and I are cousins three times removed with our great, great, great grandfather as the common ancester," said Baylor senior Suzanne Hornsby who has been the team scorekeeper for Baylor coach Gene Etter the past four years.
"Suzanne not only had to learn how to keep score for a baseball game four years ago, she also had to be proficient at keeping score on our laptop computer (automatic stats program), as we were in our third year of computerized scorekeeping her freshman year," stated coach Etter.
If the 18-year-old Athens, Tenn. native and her hall of fame ancestor had been contemporaries in the 1920s, she would have stayed busy with a few sharpened pencils and printed scorebook as the former St. Louis Cardinal star played havoc with National League pitching earning six batting titles and a pair of triple crown awards (1922, 1925; leading the National League in home runs, runs batted in and batting average).
"The Rajah" played 23 seasons in "the bigs" with impressive stats; .358 a career batting average, 2,930 hits and two Most Valuable Players awards (1925, 1929)
"I started playing softball when I was five-years-old and when I came to Baylor as ninth grader I wanted to be involved in the game in some way and being the team scorekeeper has been great," said Hornsby who doubles as a student athletic equipment manager in the fall, winter and spring.
"Not only is Suzanne our scorekeeper, she is also responsible for writing our line-up before each game on multiple copies, taken from a game sheet I provide, and giving them to the proper individuals," Etter said.
The long time Baylor coach relates a now humorous situation.
"Suzanne became quite irritated with me earlier this year on a couple of occasions when I neglected to tell her of some changes I was making until after she had already done the line-ups, causing her to have to re-do them.
"She has now implemented a new procedure, asking me if there are any changes before she begins."
Asked about Etter's comments, Suzanne smiled and acknowledged the validity of the story stating, "I do admit I am a perfectionist."
While she tallies the Baylor hits, runs and strikeouts via a laptop in the dugout, she has also compiled impressive stats in the classroom.
The current Decatur, Tenn. resident holds a 3.6 GPA, posted a 1310 on the SAT and a 29 on the ACT and plans to attend Lincoln Memorial University (Harrogate, Tenn.) on a full academic scholarship in the fall.
If an opening exists, Hornsby, who plans to study nursing at LMU, would be interested in continuing her scorekeeping duties for LMU next year.
She would be familiar with at least two players in the lineup, as current Baylor senior Adam Shuford has signed an LMU baseball scholarship and former Red Raider Isaac Edmonds is batting .270 in 29 games (17 starts) for the 26-24 Railsplitters.
Coach Etter has used a computer stats program since 2006 and will need to find a capable replacement in the dugout for Hornsby in 2011.
"I am going to greatly miss Suzanne, as I have become so accustomed to her first-class scorekeeping and her willingness to do anything else asked of her."
Hornsby, who earns a varsity baseball letter each year for her job well done, will be introduced with the Red Raider players on Senior Day (Tuesday, May 4) prior to the Baylor-Boyd Buchanan game and then back to the dugout to score what she hopes is another Baylor win.
Contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net
Rogers Hornsby
photo by National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York