So. It happened again last night. I was at a baseball game, keeping score (in a large book. that I purchased. with multiple pens in all different colors (what? I'm piloting a multi-color system). without the help of anyone around me), and lamenting my team's poor play. I can be... loud, as my voice carries well, so when I'm yelling at players/umps from up in the cheap seats, I like to pretend that they can hear me. While I'm sure my all-star pitcher didn't hear me yelling that he should not throw to 1st and should instead focus on the guy in the box, as he had been having difficulty with batters (especially this batter) all night, the guy two seats over felt the need to school me on baseball. Really? He leaned over my friend and told me that he threw over to 1st because it was important to keep that runner in check, as he has a lot of speed, and it would be super good if we could pick him off. Wow. I had no idea. I'm just sitting here with 6 different color pens keeping score, but I had no idea why my pitcher would throw to 1st. (side note, he sort of lobbed the ball to 1st, so it wasn't really a pick off move. yes, I know there are reasons other than attempting to catch someone stealing that you could have when you throw over to 1st.) This same fella did not appreciate me chiming in to his conversation later in the evening with a little baseball knowledge drop. Guess that only works in one direction with him.
This same thing happened earlier this year. I was at a game vs an AL team, and was questioning why the hell they had their relief pitcher batting. NL relief pitchers rarely bat, so why the hell would an AL one? We were all laughing at his 0.000 avg, wondering when was the last time he had actually picked up a bat. From 2 rows back, I hear someone start explaining to me that his 0.000 avg simply meant he hadn't had an at-bat all season (actually, AL fan stranger, it simply means he hasn't had a hit. I point to Jon Lester prior to this past weekend as my shining example here). I told her I wasn't questioning his avg, but rather questioning why he would be batting at all. She politely explained to me that he was batting so he could continue to pitch in the bottom of an inning. Again, I was sitting there holding my big scorebook filled with pages and pages of scorekeeping and notes. But thanks for explaining to me that in order to continue pitching, the pitcher must bat. At least this would-be teacher was a lady. I find it much less offensive.
Even earlier this year, my friend had a pair of opening day tickets he wasn't going to be able to use, so I found a fan in need and sold them for face value. This guy was great. Extremely talkative and personable. My mom and I were both thrilled he was the one who ended up with the tickets, because we had a great time with him. He did, however, keep looking over towards me and my scorekeeping, and was checking up on my skills, and seemed impressed that I was able to do it on my own.
Now, I'll be the first one to admit that there is a lot about baseball that I don't know, and there's a lot about scorekeeping that I don't know. I just learned how to do this last July. My gay boyfriend taught me as a way to have the convenience of the score in front of him without actually having to do any of the work. While I caught on really quickly, some things took a while, like learning position numbers. All last year, I had to count, starting with the pitcher, while pointing at all the players to get the position numbers I needed to write down. The gay bf found this IMMENSELY embarrassing, and constantly asked me if I could please figure out how to count without pointing. Nope. Haha I did eventually learn the numbers, however, and now I can tell you that a 3rd to 1st throw for an out is 5-3. Pitcher math still gets me sometimes when errors are involved, or when I forget to clearly mark when a new pitcher came in during an inning. And I'm trying to find a way to clearly mark who is moving players over and who is driving them home so I can actually keep track of end of game stats, like RBIs (this, and the pitcher math, is why I keep piloting multi-color systems.... just haven't found the right one yet).
So, lesson to all sports fans out there. Unless someone is asking wtf is going on, chiming in with a knowledge drop may not be the best idea. It is possible that the person sitting near you knows what's going on.
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