Marshall University Athletics
Marshall's Telles makes Dodgers debut tonight
4/28/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Thursday, April 28
By STEVE COTTON
HERDZONE.COM
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - When rookie right-hander Kenta Maeda throws his first pitch a little after 10 o'clock Eastern time tonight at Dodger Stadium, eight of his Los Angeles teammates will be poised and ready to make a play defensively.
So will former Marshall softball player Alianna Telles.
The erstwhile Thundering Herd shortstop (2009-12) will be wearing the classic Dodger uniform, just like Yasiel Puig and Adrian Gonzalez. She'll also be on the field at Chavez Ravine, just across the foul line from the two Dodger stars on the right side of the diamond.
Tonight, Telles makes her debut as a Dodgers ball girl.
At this very moment, she's battling a case of the jitters reminiscent of Marshall's opening day in 2009, when she played shortstop and batted third in a 5-3 Herd win over Seton Hall at a tournament in Las Vegas.
"I was definitely more stressed out before my debut at Marshall," Telles said with a laugh. "That was my career, and I was starting at shortstop for my first game and I was nervous to prove I belonged.
"But this is nerves, too. You're down there on the field in front of 56,000 fans, on TV, everything. You don't want to mess up."
Recruited to Marshall from the northern Los Angeles suburb of Sylmar, Telles started all but one game at shortstop over her four years with the Herd. She played the first game of a doubleheader at UAB her junior season while battling the flu, but her fever rose so high that the athletic trainer would not allow her to play Game 2.
She ranks in the top 10 in the Marshall record book in at-bats (682), hits (191), triples (5) and RBIs (104), and in the top five in doubles (41) and home runs (27).
Telles is now an assistant softball coach at Los Angeles Mission College, where she's the third base coach, hitting coach and tutors the infielders. The Eagles' junior college season ended this week, which is why she's just now making her big league debut. She also works at Harding Street Elementary School in her hometown.
Telles' jobs left her with time to fill in the summer, so last season she got a part-time job in the team merchandise shop at Dodger Stadium.
"I was working in the team stores at the stadium for games and a couple of my co-workers said, 'Man, you should have tried out to be a ball girl,'" Telles said. "I hadn't even thought of it before that, but I thought how fun that would be.
"One day this spring I thought of it and went on the website and, sure enough, they were hiring - but I almost missed out. The window to apply was closing that very morning. I called HR and they hurried up and sent me an application, I hurried and filled it out and sent it back, and almost right away I got a call back saying they'd like for me to try out … but tryouts were at 2 o'clock that afternoon!
"I arranged to leave work early that day and go to the tryout. So I hurried right to Dodger Stadium and there were 27 of us at the tryout for seven to be hired, and two of them were returners, so it was basically 25 of us trying for five spots."
The tryout consisted of physical tests as well as rules knowledge. Fortunately, her skills were honed from her work as a coach.
"They had us do some jogging, because one of our responsibilities is after there's a pitching change we have to run to the bullpen and get the pitcher's jacket and whatever else and run it back to the dugout," Telles said.
"They made us show that we could throw accurately from 90 feet, because we'll need to be able to do that when players want us to help warm up. And then they put us in foul territory where we'll be during the game, and hit foul balls off the wall down the line to see if you could play the angles and field them.
"Then they made sure we knew the basic rules, what the umpires do with a foul ball and with a fair ball, the signal for a dead ball - they obviously want to make sure nobody grabs a ball that's in play."
Then, as with most job interviews, she had to wait.
"The tryout was on a Tuesday, and on Friday I got an email that said, 'Congratulations' and told me when to go back to Dodger Stadium again," Telles said. "I was under the impression that I'd just made it through the first round of cuts and there was more to come, but when I showed up they had me fill out paperwork for uniform and hat size and stuff and I realized that I actually had the job.
"I was so excited, and I've been that way ever since. The equipment staff makes sure we have uniforms just like the players wear. Later, they had a little ceremony to present us with the uniforms and it was filmed to be used in a television commercial, so that's fun, too."
Another perk is that there's no telling whom she might meet this summer, even beyond the Major Leaguers.
"We'll be involved when they have celebrities throw out a first pitch and that kind of stuff," she said. "It is L.A., after all - famous people everywhere. Then we warm guys up between innings and then go to our bucket and wait for foul balls to come our way."
When those foul balls come her way, it's all business. The MLB emphasis in recent years on shortening games applies to ball girls, too.
"One of the big things for Major League Baseball is trying to keep the pace of the game moving along," Telles said. "They want us to be able to catch and retrieve foul balls quickly so there's not a delay in play, and since this is L.A., there are beach balls being batted around in the stands and when one gets on the field they want us to be able to run it down and get back out of the way so they can keep going."
When she takes the field tonight, Telles will be a part of Marshall's most active week in the Major Leagues in many years. Thundering Herd alumni Dan Straily and Aaron Blair are listed as the probable starting pitchers for the Reds and Braves, respectively, tomorrow. If that happens it will be the first time two Marshall products have played in the Major Leagues on the same day since Rick Reed pitched a complete game shutout for the Mets and Jeff Montgomery finished a game for the Royals on October 2, 1999. Montgomery retired following that appearance.
Telles is well aware of what Straily and Blair have been up to. Despite the 2,300 miles or so that separate Huntington and Los Angeles, she keeps close tabs on her alma mater.
"The softball team has been on TV a couple of times that I've been able to watch," Telles said. "Any time they play, I'm constantly checking the updates on Twitter."
In a career well-stocked with highlights, Telles' most cherished Marshall memory came from her very last weekend of home games, against UCF in 2012, when her parents brought her grandparents from Sylmar to watch her play.
"My Mom and Dad brought Nana and Tata all the way to Huntington," Telles said. "We always had a team breakfast before those games and Nana and Tata met us at breakfast.
"Nana hadn't seen me play many games, and while we were having breakfast she said her one request for that weekend was that she wanted to see me hit a home run. I thought, 'Oh, wow!' That's a hard thing no matter what, and UCF's pitcher had been dominating everyone all season."
A few days later, that pitcher - Mackenzie Audas - would be named the C-USA Freshman of the Year as well as the league's co-Pitcher of the Year. But Telles stepped into the batter's box to lead off the bottom of the first inning for Marshall and launched Audas' first pitch of the weekend over the left field fence at Dot Hicks Field.
"Nana was so pumped," Telles said, the emotion still in her voice nearly four years later. "She was just clapping and cheering and smiling so much in the stands. They got the ball and we gave it to her after the game.
"Of all the things at Marshall, that's my fondest memory."
It's a story she told at her Tata's funeral. His health was failing even as they made that cross-country trip to watch their granddaughter play one final time as Marshall swept the series from the Knights.
After graduating, Telles remained at Marshall to work on her master's degree and she helped the softball team with whatever Coach Shonda Stanton needed. When MU won the C-USA Tournament and received the school's first NCAA bid, to play at in a regional at Kentucky, what the Herd needed was someone to wear the mascot costume in Lexington.
"Of course, there was no way I was going to miss those games," Telles said. "I was going no matter what. But Coach Stanton said, 'I have an idea.' The next thing you know, I was going along to be Marco the buffalo.
"That was another great experience, with so many Marshall fans taking over the Kentucky stadium and the team competing so well in great games … and especially all the kids - and grownups, too - who are so excited to see Marco and get pictures and the whole thing.
"Those are the kinds of things that mean Marshall will always be with me."
Tonight, Telles is set to make more lifetime memories. Once again her family will be there; they have field level tickets down the right field line, so she put in a request to patrol that side of Dodger Stadium this evening - where the duties include tossing with Puig and Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton between innings.
Two ball girls work each game, so with seven on staff, Telles will work every third or fourth Dodgers' home game on average. Her next scheduled appearance is Saturday as Los Angeles hosts the San Diego Padres.
Right now, though, Telles just has a goal that's similar to one she had that first day she suited up for the Herd back in 2009 - no errors.
"I don't want to be on SportsCenter's 'Not Top Ten,'" she said. "It'd be great to make the good 'Top Ten' or have (legendary Dodgers broadcaster) Vin Scully talk about a good catch you made, but you definitely want to avoid the 'Not Top Ten.'"
Veteran play-by-play broadcaster Steve Cotton - a record 10-time West Virginia Sportscaster of the Year -- is in his 23rd season on the Thundering Herd/IMG Sports Network.
