This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Take Me Out to Score the Ballgame

They say baseball (or softball) is the "thinking man's (or girl's) sport". They're not talking about the players. They're talking about the scorekeeper.

When my daughter was two, we often walked to Serra Park and watched the Little League baseball games, where I explained about balls and strikes, runs and outs. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In first grade, I signed her up for Cupertino Girls Softball League (CGSL), even though the idea of playing softball myself still brings me near tears as I flashback to the horror of being picked last for every game from 5th through 9th grade, rescued only by the Modern Dance option in 10th grade. Still, I'm a big baseball fan -- I am from St. Louis, after all. Besides, I'd heard good things about CGSL.

Those little girls were so darn cute drawing designs with their toes in the infield dirt and gazing at the clouds. Even I could coach first base! Standing 5 feet beyond first base on the baseline, I'd beckon each batter as she hit off  the tee: "Come on, honey, run all the way to me. Don't stop at the base. Come all the way to me."  They always stopped on the base. Cracked me up every time.

By the time my daughter was 9, I was too scared of the missile she hurled my way to play catch with her -- she clearly took after my husband in the athletic department, thank goodness. But I did manage to vaguely improve in one area of softball -- scoring the game.

Find out what's happening in Cupertinowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

For the uninitiated, scoring a baseball or softball game does not mean just counting the runs. You make a note of whether each pitch is a ball or a strike. You record every play in a secret code, created  in the early 1900's by a clandestine society of people who all looked like Harry Carey, and which makes the Da Vinci code look like the code used by cereal box decoder rings.

At the youth level, the home team scorekeeper is the official scorekeeper, consulted by the umpire if he is unsure of something like the number of outs, the count of balls and strikes on the batter, or whether his pants make his hips look too big.

Find out what's happening in Cupertinowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Having learned the basics of the secret code in my 20's between peanuts and Cracker Jacks at various Major League Baseball games, I step up to plate when a coach asks for a volunteer. The secret code has many variations, and it is important to choose one and stick with it, so your coach can look over the score sheet later to analyze the game. A proper score sheet is a chronological presentation of every thing that happened in the game, such as when Caitlyn threw to Katelin to get Kaytee out at first, or when Kaitline was tagged by Caytie on her slide home, or when Kaetlin told Cait that she "like likes" the boy in her Lit class. It's all there.

My idol of scorekeeping is Coach Maskell of Lawson Middle School's Lady Lightning. She can coach a game of 12-year-old girls and score it at the same time. In pen. And chew gum.

I bow before her. I sometimes feel just a tad challenged by the secret code. First, I'm pretty sure they keep making the little boxes on the score sheet smaller and smaller. I've learned that if you put your reading glasses on the tip of your nose, you can look over them to see the game, and look through them to see the score sheet. As with so many things in life, seeing what you are doing is often helpful in scoring a softball game.

I find certain kinds of plays especially challenging. Remember playing "pickle" as a kid? Two kids throw the ball back and forth while another kid tries to run from one thrower to the other without being tagged. Pickles actually happen in softball. If the runner gets tagged, the secret code you record looks something like this: 2-5-6-5-6-5-4-3.14159265.  I just draw a picture of a pickle with a handy green colored pencil that I bring just in case. As with so many things in life, you can never be over-prepared when scoring a softball game.

I'm usually in awe at the skills the girls show on defense. But every now and then, Murphy comes to a play or two. For example, the catcher throws to stop a steal to second, but the shortstop isn't there, and the center fielder fumbles around in the grass to pick up the ball to throw to third, but in her rush, throws the ball into left field, behind the left fielder, who runs to Santa Cruz to get it, throws it to the shortstop, who misses it, and it rolls by the pitcher, and is picked up by the first base girl, who walks it over to the pitcher and says, "Sorry, Catelinn". In the meantime, about eight runs scored.

To score this, you indicate which position made which error in what order. I could do that. I could. Really. In about the same amount of time it would take me to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. But I prefer to write my own secret code: B-I-G M-E-S-S.

As with so many things in life, it's the thought that counts.

At last the game is over, and I turn in the score sheet to the coach with a knowing wink and a smug look that says "We are both so darn knowledgeable about this sport".  I hobnob with a few parents (Oh! So you are Cate Lin's mom!), a distraction which, of course, an official scorekeeper such as moi does not have time for during the game.

That night over a home-cooked dinner, my family discusses the game. My husband says to my daughter, "I was impressed at how your team persevered in your last at-bat to get the go-ahead run with only one out left in the game".

I drop my hot dog. "You mean, we won?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?