The Art of Athletics

The world is divided into two kinds of baseball fans: those who keep score at the ballgame... and those who have never made the leap.
~ Paul Dickson, “The Joy of Keeping Score”

Picture it: a sunny Florida Sunday afternoon. April or thereabouts. Late 1970s. I was in my early teen years and was sporting a world-class dose of hormonal angst and attitude that comes with being such an age.

And we were having a “family outing” to the ballpark. Yay. It was Spring Training time and my dad, having line marker chalk running through his veins, wanted to share the live baseball experience with us. The closest we got to such a thing, my brother’s Little League games excluded, were our yearly summer vacation jaunts through Atlanta, which always included a trip to Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and Chief Noc-A-Homa’s politically incorrect lair. The Braves were our family’s de-facto favorite team, as in those days they were the closest thing to a home team we had. (Thanks Ted Turner for your ego, Bob Horner, Biff Pocaroba and your SuperStation!)

Anyhoo.

I was actually excited about going to this particular Spring Training game, as the current Unrequited Object of My Affection and his best friend were rumored to also be in attendance. While I liked baseball, I liked this boy more… what? I was a 14 year-old-girl. Hormones trumped everything.

As we walked up the ramp of the stadium, hot dogs and sodas and such in hand, we stopped at the top where an elderly man in an elderly lawn chair sat, hawking programs. Daddy stopped to buy one, plunking down a couple of extra dimes for a couple of pencils. Which I thought was weird, but whatever.

As we sat down and got settled, Daddy handed me a pencil and a program, flapped opened to the center section. Which was basically a grid-looking thing.

“Girlie, today you’re going to learn to keep score.”

Keep score? Wasn’t that what the big scoreboard was for?

Apparently not. And that afternoon, as the Unrequited Object of My Affection wandered around the stadium (I don’t think he ever sat down – to this day, I like to think he was trying to get my attention, but we’ll never know…) I was introduced to a ritual that is as timeless as the game itself.

Keeping score.

Shortstop = 6

Slugging percentages.

Pitcher performance.

The foundation of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Baseball Statistics.

I loved it. Which surprised me, since the right side of my brain usually holds a coup when anything remotely statistical or numerical enters the grey matter. But this – this I could and did embrace.

As I marked the mystical numbers on the card and made hatch marks in boxes, I became part of the game itself. A documentarian, with lead and papyrus as my medium. My scribbles told the tale of the game. Then, now and forever. And while I can scream and backseat coach my football games and intently focus on the constant court action during basketball (OK, Celtics) games, I can intimately interact with baseball as I follow and note and analyze.

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat at a game, pencil in hand, ready to watch and write. Been wanting to pick it up again, especially since I’ve got plans to go to a lot of Rays games this summer. Just need to pick up a scorecard book (one with a spiral binding and hard cover, since I’m old now and particular about my writing accoutrements ) and take a little refresher independent study course in how to do it. I still remember which numbers correspond to which players – that’s a start, right?

Maybe I’ll ask my dad to go with me to a game so he can show me again first hand how it’s done. This time the beer and the pencil will be on me.  

We are inclined to think that if we watch a football or  baseball game, we have taken part in it.

~ John F. Kennedy