The Difference between Watching and Noticing

Guess what?  It's World Series time!  Even if you live under a rock, you must realize how historic this series is:  Cubs, last appearance 1945 (lost) and last win [1907/1908] - back to back - impressive even then, and Cleveland, last win [1948], are playing.  The longtime hopes and dreams of their fans are riding on this series.  There was a pitcher's duel last night 1 - 0 which means not enough action for me especially on TV. The way I've always gotten around the lack of action in low scoring games I've attended is by filling out a box score as the game progresses.  Thinking about this was triggered by a friend sending me an article about score keeping.   

I wish I had a nickel for every time people tell me baseball is boring.  Basically, that translates into they don't know enough about the game to actually watch it except at the most superficial level.  Since baseball takes an extended period of concentration to pick up on and see the real nuances of the game, I learned to keep score.

I've kept a box score since my brother's baseball games when I was a child sitting in a webbed aluminum lawn chair on the sidelines.  It's a wonder I wasn't beaned by a foul ball.  I was so young - still in single digits in age - I don't even remember who actually taught me the score keeping basics.   Eventually, I was named the official scorekeeper for the McArthur Bears.  Of course, I actually wanted to PLAY the game, but there were no baseball teams for girls.  (Another example of just accepting something because 'that's the way it's always been'.) A fond hope is I'll live to see a woman in the Major Leagues.

Then, I married the biggest baseball fanatic I've ever known.  In the 70's when we lived in Houston, I took a pay raise in the form of two season tickets to the Astros, who played at the 8th wonder of the world, the Astrodome, and I have score books which go back to that time.  I never score a TV game, only live ones, which today for me means mainly Spring Training games.  Early games like those are a whole other ball of wax for a scorekeeper with non-team member invited players, unknown players, minor league players with no names on their backs, and a zillion pitching changes.  

My preferred score book is a legal sized spiral Spalding score book with pre-printed pages. I don't draw in my own boxes, nor my own diamond.  There's a tidiness to the pre-printed version. I use a clipboard as a writing surface to hold my score book with a rolled towel under it to tilt the book and make it easier to write on.  I like a thin lead mechanical pencil, the same one for several years now, since the boxes are tiny, and sometimes scoring requires erasure.  My preference is to produce a tidy book without ink-outs at the end of a game.  However, at this point in my score keeping career, if pressed, I'm sure I could keep a game in ink.  To avoid that, I always carry a spare pencil to every game I score.

Every serious scorekeeper's book is unique.  I record every pitch including all the foul balls as well as keep track of how many pitches have been thrown by the starting pitcher inning by inning. I mark all balls and strikes.  I show which players touch the ball in making an out or an error.  I have my own symbols for the trajectory of the ball as it's hit.  "K's' are strikeouts.  The backward K to account for a strikeout when a player just stands there and watches the ball go by without swinging is pretty standard.  I have my own bracket symbol to indicate a double play as well as a symbol to indicate when a new pitcher enters the game.  TMI - LOL - baseball scorers are obsessive.  

I've always wanted to get a gander at Tom Grieve's score book, he's the color announcer for the Rangers,  and in some interviews up in the booth, you can see his book, but not the notations.  I do know some media people actually use different colors of ink pens when scoring to make commentary easier.  When having to pee during a game, I reluctantly hand over my book to my baseball expert for a half inning.  Recently, I've carped until he puts on his reading glasses to make the notations.  His scoring marks even then are must less pristine than mine.     

I sometimes announce to my 'row' and the people in front and behind me I'm this area's official scorekeeper. The real fans take me seriously -  they begin asking me questions as the game progresses along the lines of:  "What'd he do last time?"  "How many pitches now?" "Are you scoring that as a hit or error?"  Oh, and I also keep both sides of the contest - same markings for the other team.  Occasionally, I teach a kid to score and hand over my book.  Fortunately, I sit next to the aforementioned baseball expert, and I do consult every once in awhile when something unusual happens which, surprisingly to me, is almost every game.  

Now, with the World Series winding down, I find I'm eager for the start of the next baseball season which for me will be the end of February!  I once calculated, I notice in excess of 200 ballgames a year, but currently I'm only scoring about twenty.  That's the difference for me:  I NOTICE games which are running on television or the radio, but I WATCH the games I score.          

The Election

It's about two weeks until the election.  The first Presidential election I remember was Kennedy/Nixon - 1960.  I was 10 years old, and even I noticed how 'pretty' Jack and Jackie were.  However, historically, the 1960 election was all about the influence of television on an election just as the 1932 election was all about the influence of radio.

Kennedy campaign managers understood how you LOOKED on TV was going to be more important than what you SAID.  Nixon managers didn't get that.  Nixon, sweating with his five o'clock shadow and no TV make-up didn't look as good as Kennedy with his sunny smile, TV bronzed appearance, and great hair.  Alarm bells did not go off about form over substance.  Today, it's all about how you look.  One candidate has been derided for a bad toupee, and the other for gaining weight and looking dumpy.  It's all about being packaged with hair, make-up, teeth, and symbols as represented by clothing and accessories.  We need to be more sophisticated and stop falling for form over substance at every level of politics.

There have been many disturbing factors about this election.  The most serious is the obvious erosion of trust for the government.  I can cite statistics and facts and trends to prove this, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a mathematician to sense this.  We are playing with fire.  The line between government stability and a complete breakdown between citizens and government is very, very thin.  No ordinary person has ever been better off living in a country with an unstable government.

Democracy is not about agreement.  It's about disagreement.  However, disagreement does not mean disrespect.  In the United States there is the loyal opposition.  People who don't agree with your political viewpoint are not enemies of the state nor are they unpatriotic.  If you look back to the very founding of our country, the two houses of Congress are the first of many compromises between the political factions of the now revered Founding Fathers.

Political compromise means government happens.  We need more compromise between the two political factions in our country.  That means in practical terms, a Congressman or Senator who engages in compromise isn't financially targeted to be defeated in the next election by vindictive PACS.   Compromise in government means nobody gets everything they want, but everybody gets something.  The level of frustration with our Congress is so high because our perception is the people we are electing are not seriously working on our problems.

Another growing problem in the electronic age is we, the electorate, have to get much, much, much smarter about where we get our information.  The days of Walter Cronkite are gone.  As media has been economically consolidated, each major news outlet has a slant or bias dictated by ownership.  Some media is blue; some media is red.  Know who you are reading or listening to, and what their bias is.  At least major media (and I include major newspapers across the country as well as the five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS) still have to meet journalistic intregrity standards.  JoeBlow@blogger.com or PoliticalOpinionRus.org doesn't have to tell you facts.

It's time to recognize you should be selecting your news information not only from people you agree with but also from people you disagree with.  We oldsters remember a time when news wasn't reported if it wasn't a fact. Opinions were clearly labeled opinions. Now, our media, whether 'red' or 'blue' mixes fact and opinion as if they were exactly the same in order to persuade us of their viewpoint.  Facts don't have viewpoints.  Opinions do.

Every four years the hype is all about how are you casting your vote for President.  That portion of your vote is largely a symbolic vote.  The important votes are for County Commission, the School Board, the Water District and those little unpaid public service offices which most voters won't even be bothered with. These 'little people' are the ones who really impact your daily quality of life.

The peoplewho are giving their time and energy to work for all of us in small, usually unpaid jobs are the true heroes of a democracy.  Start at the bottom of your sample ballot and work 'up'.  Figure out who you are voting for.  For example, in Arizona there's a Central Arizona Water District Board elected every six years.  It's a no-brainer that in the desert water is crucial.  It took me a long time to figure out which five water district board members I was going to vote for, but these five votes are much more important than my Presidential vote.  A by-product of trying to decide my votes is I now understand the problems facing Phoenix about water.

Finally, the most imporant thing you can do is VOTE.   Democracies don't work if the citizens don't vote.  Apathy means the most extreme viewpoints are overly represented. Sometimes I want to shake people by the ears when I hear, 'Oh, my vote doesn't really count.'  In some places, those small offices you vote for  in your community are decided by fewer than 100 votes.  Everybody's vote counts.  The only people who don't count are the ones who don't vote.  So, get out and VOTE, AND WHEN THIS ELECTION IS ALL SAID AND DONE IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:  WE ARE ALL AMERICANS.