The lights of Albuquerque: Stubbs, Ellis set to be inducted in city's Pro Baseball Hall of Fame

Franklin Stubbs remembers two things staring back at him when he’d dig into the batter’s box at the old Albuquerque Sports Stadium.

First, the former Albuquerque Dukes great and 10-season big league slugger remembers looking into the eyes of the opposing pitcher standing 60 feet, 6 inches away.

Second, depending on the time of day, the headlights.

Yes, headlights pointed toward the field from all the cars parked beyond the outfield wall, and just past the lava rocks, in the elevated parking lot that served as a charming drive-in theater to America’s Pastime in the high desert.

“The thing you had to be careful about is, at certain times of the day, they could blind you a little bit trying to hit a ball. But it was always fun to know people were up there,” said Stubbs, who, along with former Albuquerque Isotopes catcher A.J. Ellis, will be honored before Saturday’s Isotopes game as the Class of 2025 inductees into the Albuquerque Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, a venture of the Albuquerque Isotopes.

Saturday night is also Dukes Retro night with the Isotopes wearing the picturesque mustard yellow jerseys of yesteryear. A postgame fireworks show is also on the menu.

“You could tell when somebody was ready to leave because here come the lights,” added Stubbs, who was also an Isotopes hitting coach in 2013 and 2014. “You’re like, ‘Wait a minute! Time out!’ Don’t swing the bat until that lights out your eyes. But I enjoyed that the people would actually get up there get a chance to sit down right above the lava and just kind of enjoy the game.”

Ellis, whose Los Angeles Dodgers career is highlighted by the fact that he caught more pitches from future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw than anyone, and whose Isotopes career never featured the homefield advantage of those headlights, quickly chimed in at that point in Stubbs’ trip down memory lane.

“Stubby, were they flashing the high beams to let you know fastball or curveball?” Ellis joked during a media scrum last month when the Hall of Fame class was announced.

Stubbs chuckled, “That might have been.”

Headlight aided or not, Stubbs sure could hit.

Over 237 games with the Dukes, the 1982 first round draft pick for the Dodgers had a .285 batting average, 175 RBI and his 53 career homers rank sixth on the Dukes’ all-time list — tied for 10th on the all-time Albuquerque Triple-A home run list.

Four of those round-trippers came on June 2, 1983, in one game against Phoenix.

“They were all pretty much right over the middle of the plate, about thigh high,” Stubbs said in July, recalling with remarkable clarity each pitch of that game played more than four decades ago.

Ellis’ path to the big leagues, and his successful stint in Albuquerque on his way there, started from very different places.

While Stubbs was an athletic first baseman who was a first round draft pick of the Dodgers, Ellis was the organization’s 18th round draft pick in 2003. He self describes himself as not being the athlete Stubbs was, a catcher who scrapped and fought to make a name for himself, playing in 169 games with the Isotopes from 2009-11 and 2014.

“Oh, Stubby had that 6.5 (seconds in the 60-yards). I had about a 16.5. So that position (of catcher) kind of picked me,” Ellis said. “I fell in love with being back there. I loved the action. I pitched a lot growing up, I always liked the pitcher-catcher relationship. Unfortunately, the pitching passed me by. I couldn’t get over the threshold velocity wise, so next best thing, let’s get behind the plate, have a strong arm, call good games, and be in the action.”

Ellis’ .991 fielding percentage is the second-highest by Isotopes catchers, recording only 10 errors in 1,187 chances behind the plate.

Both men will be honored before Saturday’s game against the Sacramento River Cats in an on-field ceremony set to start at 6:05 p.m. First pitch for the game is set for 6:35 p.m. with a postgame fireworks show planned, weather permitting.