Fred and Fran: Hendricken baseball celebrates its MVPs

Posted 6/26/14

Before the games and the laundry and the lifelong friendships and the passion that defines their every spring and summer, the whole thing started with a few weeds poking through a baseball field. …

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Fred and Fran: Hendricken baseball celebrates its MVPs

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Before the games and the laundry and the lifelong friendships and the passion that defines their every spring and summer, the whole thing started with a few weeds poking through a baseball field.

It was 1986, and Fran Arrigan was the mother of a Bishop Hendricken freshman. She went to a craft show at the school in October. When she left, she stopped by the baseball field, where she imagined her son would be playing in a few months.

And she started pulling weeds.

“I just picked a couple of them,” she said.

Across the field, Hendricken baseball coaches Val Innocente and Ed Holloway were working on a patch of bad grass. Fran introduced herself and said she had some seed at home. Did they want her and her husband to help out?

The coaches said yes.

“We came back and we fixed it all up,” Fran said. “That’s how I met Val and Eddie. We got talking, They needed this or that. Next thing you know, we were just here full-time.”

They still are.

On Sunday, Fred and Fran Arrigan were saluted for nearly three decades of behind-the-scenes work that has helped make the Bishop Hendricken baseball program what it is. The press box where they spend so much of their time in the spring and summer will now be named after them. Players, parents, alumni, family and friends gathered at Ray Pepin Field for the ceremony.

“It was really a surprise,” Fran said. “They told me two weeks ago that they were doing this but we didn’t know anything else. It was just wonderful, seeing all the players and parents coming back. It was great.”

And it was well-deserved.

From their weed-pulling beginnings, Fred and Fran Arrigan have become part of the fabric of the Hendricken baseball program. They wash the uniforms. They run the show on game days, Fran with the scorebook, Fred manning the scoreboard controls. They take pictures for the seniors, frame articles from championship seasons. They still pull weeds.

For 27 years, they have rarely missed a Hendricken varsity game – or a JV game, or a freshman game, or an American Legion game or a Connie Mack game.

“They’re really the MVP of the program, without a doubt,” said head coach Ed Holloway.

Holloway was the junior varsity coach when Fred and Fran first started coming around, working on the field and cheering on their son. Mark became a star for the Hawks and went on to play at Brown University.

When he finished at Brown, Mark came back to Hendricken as an assistant coach. Holloway hoped he would someday take over the program, but after two years he moved out of state.

Fred and Fran? They weren’t going anywhere.

“He left, but they stayed,” Holloway said.

Fred, who had his own athletic glory days at La Salle, taught math in Providence. Fran had been a teacher until Mark was born. When he left for college, she worked for a while at Hendricken, doing some secretarial work, helping out in the development office, even teaching English for a year.

Every spring, they were back on the baseball field, with their to-do list growing. Holloway remembers them spending hours cutting the grass, loading up their green station wagon with bags upon bags of clippings.

Soon, they were doing anything that needed to be done.

“It snowballed,” Fran said.

For all the tasks, though, it’s their support that has truly defined their time with the program. You could call them the general managers of Hendricken baseball, but general managers/loving grandparents might be a better title.

Fred and Fran are Hendricken’s biggest fans.

“They’ve made our program just so much better with everything they do,” Holloway said. “Last week at McCoy, Fran’s buying the players ice cream sandwiches and popsicles.”

On Sunday, the spotlight was – for once – on them. They visited with former players, talked with parents, shared a lot of hugs.

It was a special day.

“I’m lucky and the whole program is so lucky to have them,” Holloway said.

When the festivities wrapped up Sunday, it wasn’t long before Fred and Fran got back to baseball. Hendricken’s legion club had a game Tuesday.

And those weeds don’t pick themselves.

William Geoghegan is the sports editor at the Warwick Beacon. He can be reached at 732-3100 and williamg@rhodybeat.com.

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  • JohnStark

    Couldn't happen to nicer people.

    Friday, June 27, 2014 Report this