I was a Rarity – One of Only 17,474 People

A friend told me she loved her Pontiac Vibe.

I used to drive a Vibe. The first car I ever drove was a Pontiac. It was a Chieftain. They not only don’t make them like they used to, they don’t make Pontiacs at all.

Her comment caused me to consider other brands I once patronized that are gone: Borders, Woolworth’s and A&P. Life is a series of giving up things.

Metropolitan Stadium went away. It was in Bloomington. I saw my first in-person Minnesota Twins game there as a Luther Leaguer. It was my reward for being a Luther Leaguer and for getting to the bus on time. We were ducklings paddling in a new pond.

The Twins’ name sounds perfect today, but it didn’t always have the luster of historical names like Toledo Mud Hens, Minot Why Nots or Iola Gasbags. The Twins moniker wouldn’t have come close to matching the image of today’s Amarillo Sod Poodles or the Rock City Trash Pandas.

I bought a hot dog, splashed mustard on it in case my shirt needed stains, and ate it as if I’d just discovered I had teeth.

I purchased a program with a two-page scorebook in it. I didn’t need to buy a pencil, as I’d brought a mechanical pencil along – it was a birthday gift. I kept score because I knew how. I’d learned in kindergarten. I know I was better at keeping score than I was at tying my shoes. I paid rapt attention to the game. I had to. I was an official scorer.

In baseball scorekeeping, a strikeout is denoted by the letter K. When journalist Henry Chadwick developed the first scorecards in the 1860s, he used abbreviations to put in those little boxes. According to MLB, Chadwick decided on the letter K when a batter struck out. Was it because it’s the last letter in “struck”? Apparently not. Chadwick couldn’t use “S” for “struck” because it had been used for “sacrifice.” Instead, he went with what he thought was the world’s most memorable sound: the letter K.

A popular piece of scorekeeping folklore is that a K is used because it takes three strokes of a pencil to write, symbolizing the three strikes required for a strikeout.

A K indicates struck out swinging, and a backward K means struck out looking.

Our excellent team of Luther Leaguers was seated in the outfield. We carried baseball gloves because we were a hopeful lot. We weren’t in the cheap seats. We were in the cheapest seats, but the field looked a vivid green from where we sat.

We played baseball. I thought our team was going to be sponsored by the local funeral home, but that deal fell through because our salary demands were too high. Pity. I’d been looking forward to playing for the mighty Embalmers and wearing the team’s black T-shirt.

There wasn’t enough scoring in the Twins’ game. It was a pitcher’s duel.

The games we played as the not-the-Embalmers typically had a lot of scoring. It wasn’t NBA-like, but it was more than the Twins and their foes were putting on the scoreboard that day. I thought the American League should reduce the number of players on the field to eight to aid in run production.

There were public address announcements, “Will the owner of the orange and pink Dodge pickup with the two flat tires parked next to the decommissioned aircraft carrier, please report to Gate 3. You’re making the parking lot look bad.”

There was one memorable announcement that welcomed Luther Leaguers to the old ballpark.

When I got home, I regaled my homebound family with tales of the Met and the Twins. I told Mom the hot dogs weren’t as good as hers, despite frankfurters supposedly tasting best at a ballpark.

I was an avid reader of the humble box score, and the one for that Twins game was in the newspaper the next day. It matched my scorecard. I checked the attendance. It was 17,474. That sounded right. I considered that proof that I was there. Without me, there would have been only 17,473 in attendance.

It was good to know I’d made a difference.

And it was nice to know I counted.