Its spring training for everyone. Even the official scorer.
Today was a work day for me. Well make that a work afternoon. While I do enjoying coming to spring training for the (mostly) beautiful weather and the food, like everybody else I'm here to get ready for the season.
The Silver Hawks season ends in early September. The next game isn't until the second week of April. So for just under seven months I don't see a live baseball game. Unless I come down to spring training, my only opportunity to see baseball is either on tv, or sitting in the stands at Notre Dame. And I'll tell you that in March those metal benches are awfully cold!
So I make the sacrifice to take time away from my regular job to come down to the desert and endure the 70-80 degree temperatures to get ready for the season. The Diamondbacks are generous enough to allow me to sit in their press box and get in my practice.
The Midwest League uses the designated hitter. But there's none of that down here. The Diamondbacks are, of course, in the National League. When you add the normal NL lineup juggling to the mass substitutions of spring training, keeping score becomes a real challenge.
If you can keep an accurate scorebook in a National League spring training game, you're ready for anything. Now, I do get some help in these games. The Diamondbacks regular scorer, announcer and staff members in the dugouts all work together to keep track of the changes, and do an excellent job of keeping the press box up to date.
In today's game the Cubs didn't bring their full squad down, so they only used 18 players. Though, in the 9th inning they brought in a couple players who weren't on their regular roster. When you see number 94, with no name on his jersey come in to pinch hit you know its spring training. The Diamondbacks used 23 players. I'm proud to say all 41 players are in the right place on my score sheet.
Over the winter I designed my own computerized score sheet to better keep track of the action, and hopefully save a little paper. The system that the minor leagues use to keep track of the action requires the official scorer to call in after each half-inning and read a play-by-play of the action to a MLB.com staffer who then puts it on the computer. You have to be precise and efficient to get everything in before the next inning starts. A traditional scorebook doesn't work very well for me on this system. So I've been developing my own way of keeping track of things that works best with making the calls. We've been doing it this way for five or six years now. In five or six more I think I'll have it perfected.
The Cubs beat the Diamondbacks 7-2.
If you're wondering about the difference between southern and northern Mexican food, at least according to the menu of the restaurant I went to last night, in southern Mexico most of the meat is cooked on a charcoal grill. That makes for a particularly tasty beef taco. I also had one dish that was just chorizo smothered in melted cheese. In any part of North America spicy sausage covered in cheese is a delicious dinner.
I think I'm going to change things up tonight. There's an Arizona steakhouse not too far from the stadium called the Silver Saddle. A review online says the decor looks like John Wayne used to live there.
A few years ago, in the pressbox I heard Tracey Ringolsby raving about the place. Ringolsby is a columnist for Baseball America and was with the Rocky Mountain News for years before they folded. He's also a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame as a writer. And you'll know him by his trademark cowboy hat. Seems like the kind of guy who knows a good steak.
I think I better go back to the hotel and get on the treadmill first.
Writing this report has me wondering how Owen gets ready for the season. Do you think he watches games on television with the sound down and does his own play-by-play while sitting by himself in his living room? Do you think he'll let us watch?
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