How to Keep Score
Take Note takes on taking in a baseball game.
Ted here…
On the latest podcast episode, Adam asked for tips or guidance on what to do with himself at a Spring Training baseball game. He wasn’t raised in the game, as it were, and needed some direction in order to draw as much sap as possible from the national pastime’s maple. Fortunately, he gave me lead time on the question, so I had a chance to gather my thoughts. Here, in slightly different form, are my suggestions for taking in a ballgame:
“Keep score”
There is the hardcore version of keeping score, in which you mark every ball and strike and out and create a perfect library of events. If that is all a bit beyond you, I suggest “keeping score.” Do it your own way, with your own notation. Write down what happened along the way in your own language, your own way. Give yourself a roadmap of what caught your attention, the feel of the exciting inning, the big moments that marked their ascent, the small, quiet failures that doomed their fate. Ultimately you’ll pay more attention to the drama of the individual game, rather than letting the innings flow by without fully enjoying and embracing the journey. And maybe do it with your children. Let them decide how to keep score.
I sat by #1 fan of the pod and occasional co-host Ryan Slie at a 10u baseball game. He kept score using a notation of his own devising, in his Field Notes with a wood-cased pencil, just as you expect he would. That guy knows how to do it.
Observe the small details around you. Revel in them
Maybe think of it as alternative scoring technique. What are the craziest, most curious events you saw in the game. What fellow fan caught your eye and held your gaze? Chances are very good that you’ll see a play at a baseball game that you’ve never seen before and never will again. At a 10u baseball game yesterday, I saw the hitter foul tip a ball, and the ball fired back into the catcher’s chest then burrowed down into his jersey behind the chest protector, securing the third strike. This is the sort of thing I mean.
Read Project 3.18
Paul Jackson mines the instances across history in which something crazy happened in baseball, on the field or in the clubhouse, or the sky above the field, or the city . Baseball is a way to bring order to an unruly universe. Paul chronicles the moments when order breaks down, chaos takes hold, and society must return us to equilibrium. Maintain a keen eye for the authority of the umpire and where it presses up against the goals and desires of the player and the coach. Live in the power dynamic that unfolds.
Talk about Jackie Robinson (and Rachel Robinson) from the minute you walk through the gates until you are putting the kids to sleep at night
SABR’s page will get you going
How Yankees broadcaster Dave Sims Keeps Score
Dave Sims is a wonderful baseball broadcaster. So wonderful that that he recently moved from his long-time gig with the Seattle Mariners to the New York Yankees. Back in the early 2010s, Sims indulged me, a small-time baseball blogger then based in Seattle, with a few minutes to discuss his scorekeeping practice.
“Keeping score helps you tell the story of the ballgame.” - Dave Sims
Playlist: The Greatest Hits of Winter 2024-25
Roughly every season I create a new Spotify playlist wherein I capture new music that sound promising and old stuff that for whatever reason is on my radar and in my ear. Winter 2024-25 was no different. The frequency was ssubuded. Mk.gee wowed me on SNL; Dylan took over my brain (thanks to the one-two punch of A Complete Unknown and the Jokermen podcast; Dawes sprang to the fore after the LA fires, MJ Lenderman won my heart and Angie McMahon plundered my soul.
From the big playlist, I built a greatest hits of the season of the songs that rose to the top of this particular chart. As summer starts to raise its head above the horizon, I hope you enjoy this remnant of winter and that it offers you some early season buds.
I gather that if you already like Bon Iver, then you're probably into Anais Mitchell as well. I had featured her Hadestown album a few years before she fleshed out the story for the big stage.
Keeping score... haven't done it in years. Would like to see something of a visual for Sims' score sheet.
I appreciate the plug but I'm a little worried about the order of operations here. In a list about appreciating baseball, you put reading Project 3.18 BEFORE telling your kids about Jackie Robinson. This week I wrote about the time the Mariners had to wear another team's hats because theirs were stolen.
Folks trying to get into baseball: please learn about Jackie Robinson first, and once you're totally done with that, I'm happy to tell you all about the stolen hats.