Field of Lames

So I was sitting around the other day thinking, "Boy, it's been at least a few days since Borsch has written an article about baseball!"

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: It took 19 innings to score a treasured father-daughter memory
Published: Wednesday, June 01, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

"Score." Because you score runs in baseball.

There’s always been a rule in our family: Never leave a ballgame early. It’s not only because something fun or unusual might happen, but because we go to the ballpark to enjoy the game, its sounds, smells and ambiance, not because we want to leave early and beat the traffic home.

First paragraph and we already have a "ballgame" and a "ballpark." I wonder if he brought his ballglove to catch a foul baseballball!

Well, the Phillies certainly tested that rule last week with their 19-inning tilt against the Cincinnati Reds.

And yep, I was there. For … the … whole … thing. All six hours and 14 minutes’ worth.

He makes it sound like this is a big chore, after a whole paragraph spent extolling the virtues of staying the whole game.

Joining me for the bonus baseball was Older Daughter, who has grown up with the family’s rules and is well aware of them.

That's a little redundant, isn't it? She grew up with them. AND is well aware of them! Also, she knows them!

I had reminded her in passing as the game entered the 10th inning that we never leave a game early. At that point, neither of us suspected we’d be there for another nine innings.

“I know the family rule,” she said matter-of-factly.

Isn't THIS a little redundant? The story so far: he established that the Morsch family stays for extra innings, and Older Daughter knows that. Then Morsch reminds Older Daughter that they stay for extra innings, and she confirms that she knows that.

As if to further demonstrate her understanding of the family rules, she turned to me after the 18th inning and said: “It would be kind of a half-assed effort on our part if we were to leave after the 18th inning, wouldn’t it?”

Woah woah woah, not even a warning that this column contains PG-13 material? He warns viewers to look away when he discusses poop, but tosses a casual "ass" out there?

Atta girl. When one’s daughter describes a six-hour, 18-inning effort at 1 a.m. as “half-assed” if we don’t see it through to the end, then that demonstrates a pretty good grasp of the We Never Leave a Ballgame Early Rule.

Nice elaborate made-up title. Also, this is the third time we've established that Older Daughter knows this rule.

Given my affinity for hotdogs mentioned in this space over the years, you might think a 19-inning ballgame would provide more than an ample opportunity to see if I could eat every hotdog in the ballpark.

Ballgame! Ballpark! Hot dogs! Is Borsch trying to do an Adam West Batman-style self-parody?

Oddly enough, I didn’t have a single dog that evening, which in hindsight is admittedly an error in judgment. I’m going to have to make a new family rule to address that: Never Go to a Ballgame Without Eating at Least a Half Dozen Hotdogs.

He might also create a The More Words I Use the Funnier I Become rule. How many little asides does he need to make a sentence amusing? "Oddly enough," "in hindsight," "admittedly"... These are the things that probably look hilarious to him while he's piling them on, but try actually reading them.

Among the unique aspects of the game was that the Phils’ winning pitcher ended up being position player Wilson Valdez, who became the first player to start a game in the field and end up getting the win on the hill since Babe Ruth did it a bazillion years ago. Raise your hand if you thought the names Babe Ruth and Wilson Valdez would ever be mentioned in the same sentence for any reason.

Was this one of the great memories he shared with Older Daughter? She seems to have vanished... Borsch is punishing us with all these extra details. Given all the clauses he jams into that first sentence is "getting the win on the hill" really necessary? Where else would you get the win?

I enjoyed having both a Seventh Inning Stretch and a 14th Inning Stretch, where we got to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” twice in the same game. I have no doubt that if we had made it to the 21st inning, we would have sung again. (At one point on the scoreboard, it was revealed that the Phillies longest game in team history was a 21-inning contest against the Chicago Cubs in 1918.)

Too... many... unnecessary... baseball facts! Shouldn't there be an apostrophe after "Phillies"?

However, the most unusual and challenging aspect for Older Daughter and me ended up being the keeping of the scorecard.

Pathetic.

I’ve kept a scorecard at every game I’ve been to since I was a kid. And now as an adult, she has expressed an interest in that part of going to the ballgame, and I have been teaching her the intricacies of scorecard keeping the past few games we have attended together this season.

Wait - WHO as an adult? Borsch or Older Daughter? Chalk up another "ballgame."

The problem with the Phillies pre-printed scorecards is that they provide space for only 10 innings. There are additional columns for game totals that, if necessary, can be used to get one through 14 innings of scorekeeping.

Oh, horrors! Since only a tiny fraction of games ever go past the 14th inning, this is obviously a HUGE oversight on the part of the Phils!

But neither the Phillies nor the Reds cooperated by scoring any runs from the 11th through the 18th innings. So we were forced to get creative with the scorecard and write in the margins and then eventually, turn the scorecard vertically and utilize any vacant spaces that could be found.

This is just too exciting for words. Scorekeeping! Margin writing!

And we each got the whole game scored on our separate scorecards. Had it gone past 19 innings, I’m not sure what we would have done because we truly were out of space at that point. Older Daughter suggested afterward that she would have written on a napkin and stapled it to the scorecard if the game had continued. “You don’t come that far to have an incomplete scorecard,” she said.

This - THIS - is a memory worth treasuring? "Hey, remember that time we almost ran out of room on that piece of paper?" Who could possibly think this is material interesting enough for publication?

The game ended around 1:15 a.m., and the Phillies rewarded us by winning the game. Both of us did the “Yea, We Won Dance” after the winning run scored. At that time of the morning, I was not embarrassed to have anyone see me dance.

Ah, and a reference to a fictional dance just to cap things off.

I dropped Older Daughter off at her house and made it home by 2:30 a.m. We both had to go to work the next morning, and the late night made for a long day the next day.

"...the next day" is completely unnecessary. He obviously dashes these off the night before they're due and never re-reads them.

About midday, I sent her a text message: “I know it was a long night, which is making for a tough day today, but I’m happy you were with me last night.”

His texts are as poorly-written as his columns.

She responded: “Ya, I had a really good time. Thanks for a good memory.”

And that’s what it indeed became, a great memory.

Why, you can still remember it days later! And in all fairness, she said "good memory," not "great memory."

It was a unique baseball game for sure, but it turned into a unique father-daughter experience that just the two of us share, a story that maybe someday she’ll tell her children.

This is absurd! What a claim! And for being such a unique and memorable experience, we heard precious little about what he and his daughter did together (we know they attended the game and kept scorecards).

It was a special evening, but not because the Phillies and Reds played 19 innings. It was special because I got to share it with a special person in my life. And that’s why we never leave a ballgame early. Because sometimes, if one is lucky, it ends up being about something other than just baseball.

Bull. This column was 922 words long. On a purely by-paragraph basis, if you remove the sections unrelated to his activites with Older Daughter, you're left with 490 words. So really, this once-in-a-lifetime memory merited 53% of his column; the remaining 47% involved hot dogs, baseball trivia, etc.