Baseball stationery
by Steve
Yes, readers, I appear to be going for quantity over quality this week. Your eyes are not deceiving you – this is the fourth post this week! No doubt normal service will resume shortly, with long pauses between posts. But it is good to keep you all on your toes, right? Anyway, I like lots of stuff. And I like it when two different things I like combine in a beautiful way. And here is a great example of that…
As the baseball season rapidly approaches, I’ve been getting back up to speed with the sport. One of my new favourite stop-offs is the Eephus League website, which collates all sorts of baseball emphrema, trivia and minutiae. It is a wonderful, ever-growing treasure trove. It is also incredibly accessible, which is very welcome. There is as much there for the newcomer (which, relatively speaking, I am) as there is for the lifelong fan.
The website has a fantastic prototype for a baseball scorebook. Now, I love baseball and I love stationery, so this is pretty much the ideal item for me. I’ve tried scoring a few games (and I’m sure promised to blog about it a while back, but then failed miserably to do so), but I think I’d be tempted to do so more often if I had a swanky book to score with. It would certainly beatscoring with a few dog-eared, photocopied sheets.
No doubt I’d muck up the scoring, or end up devising my own unintelligible system, but never mind. It would be a lovely thing to have, and a lovely thing to look back on. Plus, the current prototype has room for making general notes on what happened, beyond the boxscore. I like the idea of scrawling fun little notes, and then trying to make out what they meant years later.
Anyway, for the site to print the scorebook, they need to guarantee that enough people would actually buy one. As I want to get some baseball stationery sooner rather than later, I’m spreading the word. Take a look at the latest update on the baseball scorebook production here.
Wait until next year 
I’m always a sucker for scorecards. I can never keep score beyond the third inning, or whenever there’s a double play that diverges from 6-4-3, whichever comes first. I have a big collection of half-completed scorecards somewhere.
What’s the baseball situation like in England? Is there a thriving subculture, or is it sort of like soccer or cricket is here, where you have to subscribe to premium television channels to keep up?
LikeLike
I’m the same with scoring. I also get far too flustered when there is a pitching change.
In England you either need to subscribe to a premium channel, or subscribe to MLB.TV on the net. I do the latter, as there are no restrictions on what games I can watch (unlike in the US) and I can pick and choose when to access it. Plus, you get the radio broadcasts too, which make my work days go a little quicker (if less productively).
Baseball seems a very niche interest – far more people are into (American) football and basketball, in terms of US sport. There are nasty Yankees caps everywhere, though. However, I doubt the wearers know who Joe DiMaggio is, let alone Derek Jeter.
LikeLike
I’m getting excited about minor league baseball: Albuquerque has a AAA affiliate for the LA Dodgers. (The team’s moniker is the Isotopes, after the Simpsons’ team.) We’ll get the up-and-comers, and the players who get steroid suspensions. I never liked the Dodgers, but I guess I’m going to have to learn.
LikeLike
Wow, this book looks fantastic. After years of spiral bound score books and the dog-eared photocopies you refer to its clearly something I must have. I also need to buy one for my father, my sister, my uncle etc. The only thing I’m not real clear on is how big or small the book will actually be if it is produced. My writing is large and childish at the best of times. . . thanks for pointing this out.
LikeLike
I thought you might like them! I think they are still mulling over sizes – while there is a prototype for a larger version, I think the smaller one is more viable financially. Hopefully there will be enough interest for both!
LikeLike