Behind The Plate: 'Quick Rick' Records Balls And Strikes
CHICAGO (CBS) -- They call him "Quick Rick," and he's known to have the fastest fingers in baseball.
"They call me Quick Rick cuz I post the balls and the strikes up real fast," said Rick Fuhs, Cubs groundskeeper and scoreboard operator.
As the official balls and strikes scoreboard operator, Fuhs sits high atop the press box over Wrigley Field and has become a bit of a legend.
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"They even talk about me on the tours here, which is pretty funny," he said.
Fuhs has been with the Cubs for 38 years. He was 18 when started out as a maintenance worker, cleaning up around the ballpark. Now he's on the grounds crew and operates the original console that displays the numbers that appear on the 78-year-old centerfield scoreboard.
"I post batter number, balls and strikes and the outs and if there is a hit or an error on the play, I post those up too," Fuhs said.
The vintage box displays green and red buttons with a line of numbers along the top and is connected to manually operated scoreboard, which is part of the rich tradition of Wrigley Field.
"It's got a lot of character," Fuhs said. "It's from 1937, the score panel. Look how easy it is to operate? It looks like something from the Titanic."
The Chicago Bears used to play at Wrigley Field until 1970. The console even has designations for football -- an indicator button that shows which team has the ball and a "D" for downs.
For Fuhs, recording the balls and strikes is about knowing what's next, about instinct and watching the umpires.
"Lot of umpires they will, they have certain characters, they'll step to the right and they'll call a strike," he said. "I watch their movements."
He usually keeps score to follow the batting lineup, but the new video boards have made his job a lot easier.
"All I have to do now is look up at the board to see who's next, but a lot of time I'll still score to keep me more involved in the game," Fuhs said.
Fuhs estimates he's recorded a million pitches over his 27 years behind the console, a job he says he loves -- but he mentions he still has one more wish.
"My one true goal is to see a World Series here and punch that last out when the Cubs win!" he says.
