CLEVELAND — Dale Wojcik, 61, a retired letter carrier from Parma, Ohio, said Saturday night that the Cleveland Guardians had beaten the Tampa Bay Rays 9-0 in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. He said he had known the score since the first inning, because he had written it down.
The Rays won 7-3 at Progressive Field, tying the series at two games apiece. Yandy Díaz hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning, and Tampa Bay’s runs came after a series of Cleveland errors, according to game reports.
Mr. Wojcik had filled in a paper scorecard before the game, using a pencil he bought from a kiosk on Ontario Street. He recorded every Guardians hitter, every inning and every pitch he could see from Section 137, and nine runs in the first column of the sheet, which he said was the only column that mattered.
“I did the lineups, I did the pitchers, I did the nine,” he said. “I put the 9-0 in ink. Ink doesn’t change.”
By the seventh inning, the card showed Cleveland’s nine runs and a tenth in the margin, which Mr. Wojcik said was a courtesy to the bullpen. The Rays’ runs were written in pencil at the bottom of the sheet. He explained that they were provisional, a term he said he had learned from a stadium announcer during a rain delay in 2019. He crossed them out with the eraser end of the pencil, which he said is how the official program handles it.
The scorecards are kept in binders, arranged by year, in his basement. Mr. Wojcik has held season tickets since 1994 and has filled in a card for every home game since. He said he has not opened the binder for 2019 because he has no reason to.
Tom Brezinski, the Reporter’s sports writer, asked Mr. Wojcik how the card could show a final score before the game was played.
“It’s on the card,” Mr. Wojcik said.
Asked what the card was based on, he said it was based on the card.
Asked what went wrong for the Guardians on Saturday, Mr. Wojcik repeated the postgame cliché that the team “just has to play better.” He then said he had been saying it since the first inning, which he said was before any of the trouble started, and before the Rays had come to bat.
He has no plans to show the card to the Rays. “They’re going to say they scored,” he said. “They can say it in their program.”
He has already written “FINAL” in the bottom row, underlined twice, and circled the 9.
“It says final,” he said. “I don’t see what they’re waiting for.”