BY MATT LaWELL
KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina | Every season, from the first week of February through the last week of October, tens of thousands of baseball widows are scattered around the world. Most are the wives and girlfriends of players and coaches, executives and interns, writers and broadcasters, left behind for another season, in the background sometimes for months at a stretch. Patience and understanding are virtues. Necessities, too.
Reneé Fox is both patient and understanding, but she is not a baseball widow.
Fox operates the scoreboard for the Kannapolis Intimidators, her seat nestled in the corner of the control room at CMC-NorthEast Stadium. She watches the games, punches buttons, sometimes even keeps score and calls in play-by-play to producers in New York who upload everything to the team website. And she does it a seat or two from her husband, Sean, the public address announcer and music director for the team.
Other couples share other press boxes, though the numbers are low. There are scores more baseball widows than press box pairs, a fact not lost on the Foxes. “You get to share the experiences,” Reneé says.
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Sean and Reneé share a relationship rooted in sports. “Everything,” Reneé says, “has been involved with sports. Even at our wedding, instead of numbers on the tables, we had sports teams or schools that were important to us.”
Let’s start a little earlier than the wedding.
When she was still in elementary school, Reneé fell for Mark Lemke and cheered for the Atlanta Braves in a Philadelphia Phillies home. She wanted to play hockey, but her parents told her they had already paid too much for her teeth.
A while after that, when he was still in high school, Sean showed up at Hammond Stadium and wound up behind the mic as the p.a. announcer for the Minnesota Twins during spring training and the Fort Myers Miracle the rest of the season. He wanted to play baseball, but found himself cut from his high school team. “So I would go to class for first, second period,” Sean says, “then I would go to Twins spring training.”
Florida State League summers unfurled, hot games in cavernous spring training facilities, three hours to fill almost every night, and friendship developed into dates and a relationship and a search for a ring. He proposed three summers ago in victory lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway. They celebrated their first anniversary with a baseball game. And their second.
Sean studied four years at Catawba College in North Carolina, then returned to the Miracle, this time as the radio broadcaster. He talked more and traveled more than ever before. He also started to spend some time with a girl he had met named Reneé.
“We started off as friends,” Reneé says.
“Most of the time, she would tag along,” Sean says.
Florida State League summers unfurled, hot games in cavernous spring training facilities, three hours to fill almost every night, and friendship developed into dates and a relationship and a search for a ring. He proposed three summers ago in victory lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway. They celebrated their first anniversary with a baseball game. And their second.
They moved back to North Carolina two years ago after Sean landed a position with Pfeiffer College — sports information director, of course. Reneé teaches math to sixth graders at a nearby middle school, which leaves the bulk of the baseball season free to work nights together.
Sean mixes a baritone delivery with musical humor, blaring “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” after an Intimidators batter is knocked to the dirt by a pitch and gets to his feet to walk toward first. Reneé never seems to miss a pitch, the scoreboard updated in perfect time with the home plate umpire.
“If she doesn’t write something down exactly, she gets mad,” Sean says. “She’s not a perfectionist, but she doesn’t like to leave out details.”
“He has this voice,” Reneé says. “Honest to goodness, I only hear it when he announces, and it engages the people who are listening. He doesn’t give himself enough credit.”
They both complement and compliment each other in the booth.
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Reneé is pregnant with their first child, a girl they plan to name Kylie, due in late October, right around the World Series. She already has an infant Phillies jersey with her name stitched on the back, a gift from her grandfather. That means she might be raised to love the Liberty Bell and the legacy of Mike Schmidt. Or she might side with her father and root for the Rays. Or she might be like her mother and rebel for some other team.
No matter her cheering interests, Kylie will likely be raised in the press box, not far from her p.a. announcer father and scoreboard operator mother. There is plenty of room in the control room for a baby carrier.
No baseball widows. No baseball orphans.
“I have a feeling she’ll be sleeping in the corner,” Reneé says, “and we’ll be right here doing what we always do.”
Matt@AMinorLeagueSeason.com ♦ @MattLaWell ♦ @AMinorLgSeason
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