When Paul and I were at yesterday's Mets' game, we did both did something that we have done as long as I can remember, we both kept score. My memory is that I taught myself how to keep score using a baseball guidebook and experimenting with a few games on television. I don't think my father taught me, but he may very well have helped along the way. Paul tells me that I taught him how to keep score one day while we were watching a game on television. I do know that I have taught some other people how to do it, including Carol who now likes to do a few innings at almost every game we go to. While I have known how to keep score for a long time, I hadn't done it on a regular basis until I started to take Paul to games. I am not one of those who keeps track of every detail, I do it because it helps me to stay focused on the game especially with all the dead time in today's games.
What brought this to mind is that after going to the Mets' game on Saturday with Paul and keeping score in the modern system, on Sunday I went to Elkton, Maryland for a vintage base ball tournament in my capacity of tally keeper (score keeper) for the Newark Eureka. Like most things about the game score keeping in the nineteenth century was very different than today's standard approach. While Harry Chadwick would ultimately introduce a scoring system not unlike today's, in the early days, the tally keeper kept track of only two things outs, or hands, and runs. That makes it sound very simple, after all there is no need to keep track of balls and strikes, how batters made out or got on base.
But as I said, the game is different and you have to pay attention. The best illustration of how that is so is the fact that in the 1860's and 1870's foul balls caught on the bounce were outs. I realized this early on when a batter foul tipped a ball that was caught by the catcher on one bounce with the batter back on the bench before I realized there was an out. Baseball then as now was a very subtle game.
Today the Eureka played two games, one against the Elkton Eclipse and one against the Havre de Grace club - a first year team. The Elkton club is really good, last year they pounded the Eureka and they had done the same to the Flemington team only yesterday. So it was a sign of progress that the Eureka lost only by a score of 12-6. The second match was an exciting back and forth affair that was tied at 14 after 8 innings. Unfortunately, the Eureka were wearing down after about five hours in the sun and Havre de Grace scored five times in the ninth for a 19-15 win. While the Eureka start off the season 0-3, there has been some real progress from last year.
As as been the case with every vintage game I have participated in, I had a great time. Taking part even as a tally keeper takes me back to my earliest days with baseball. Like most people, I guess, I played it before I ever went to a game so that days like today even more so than yesterday have elements of nostalgia. There is a teaching concept called hands-on-learning, learning by working with objects rather than text books. Well in many ways that is what vintage baseball is all about, men, and some women - witness Havre de Grace's catcher, using the objects of the old game (uniforms, bats, balls etc) and not using objects of the new game (gloves - a fad that will never catch on!) to play the game the way it used to be played. You learn a lot about how the game has changed as well as how it hasn't, just by watching. I look forward to the rest of the season with great anticipation.
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