[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15634-15635]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          A TRIBUTE TO TAN'KO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from the Northern Mariana Islands (Mr. Sablan) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, in the Northern Mariana Islands, as in the 
rest of America, baseball is the national pastime. And no single person 
in our islands' history did more to establish and maintain the sport of 
baseball than Francisco M. Palacios. Yet he did it without playing a 
single game.
  The American military brought baseball to our islands during World 
War II. Along with the rifles and planes came gloves, bats, and balls 
for the soldiers' recreation. Schoolboys and young men on our islands 
picked up the game naturally from the military. Then play became 
formalized. Teams were organized around neighborhoods, and the first 
league was formed in 1953.
  As a young man, Palacios would walk the 3 miles to Garapan to watch 
the Sunday afternoon games. He wanted to play but didn't have the skill 
to make the starting nine of his district team in Chalan Kanoa. So, 
sitting on the bench in the dugout, Palacios decided to contribute by 
becoming the scorekeeper.
  He learned the art of scorekeeping from a Navy man stationed on 
Saipan, and a look at Palacios' score sheets reveals a military 
preciseness and meticulousness. The system he used was invented a 
hundred years ago earlier by American Henry Chadwick, who is now in the 
Baseball Hall of Fame.
  Soon after becoming his team's scorekeeper, Palacios began keeping 
score for the entire league, and he remained the official scorekeeper 
for every baseball league on Saipan until his retirement in 2006--a 
span of six decades.
  Palacios, called ``Tan'ko'' in our vernacular language, raised over a 
dozen children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But 
he always made time for his duties as scorekeeper.
  Without a scorekeeper, there is no game; without a record keeper, 
there are no records. And baseball, more than any other game, depends 
on its records. The box score preserves a game for all time no matter 
when or where it's played. Season records give us a way of comparing 
players, even those who never played against each other. The records 
connect the past to the present.
  Thanks to Tan'ko, Saipan was the only island in all of Micronesia 
that

[[Page 15635]]

maintained yearly statistics, season after season.
  Thanks to Tan'ko's dedication as a volunteer, baseball grew. Frank 
Palacios was there to help when Little League was first organized in 
1973. Since then, teams from the Northern Mariana Islands have been 
frequent contestants at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, 
Pennsylvania; at the Junior League World Series in Taylor, Michigan; at 
the Senior League World Series in Bangor, Maine; and at the Big League 
World Series in Easley, South Carolina. Players from Saipan have gone 
to play college baseball in the mainland.
  In 1994, the Commonwealth legislature recognized Tan'ko's 
contributions by renaming its only regulation baseball field Francisco 
M. Palacios Field.

                              {time}  1910

  In 2007, Palacios co-authored the book ``Saipan Baseball: From the 
Beginning,'' which included all the individual and team records from 
the inception of the Saipan Major League in 1982.
  Francisco M. Palacios has been voted into the CNMI Sports Hall of 
Fame. When his name came up for selection, there was no argument. He 
was selected unanimously.
  Tan'ko provided the solid, steady foundation for baseball to become 
Saipan's favorite pastime. And he did it all, not by hitting home runs 
or striking out batters; he accomplished it with his calm, dependable 
presence, sure knowledge, and selfless devotion. That is why he came to 
be a legend in his own time, in his own way, on his own island.

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