Haven’t had much time to blog since I’ve been attending several Buffalo Bisons games. They play in the Triple-A International League. July 3rd was the annual Independence Eve fireworks and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concert. The Herd lost to Rochester, 7-6 in 13 innings. Todd Linden hit a solo home run in the 2nd and drove in the tying run in the bottom of the 9th on a 4-3 groundout (2nd baseman to first baseman for those of you unfamiliar with position numbering). Reliever Edward “Bubbie” Buzachero gave up a solo homer to Rochester’s Trevor Plouffe in the 13th and the Bisons went down in order in the bottom of the 13th to seal their fate.
July 6th was Cap Night against the Syracuse Chiefs. David Purcey pitched 7 scoreless innings, giving up all 4 Bison hits in recording a quality start for the Chiefs. July 10 and 11 brought back-to-back shutouts at the hands of the Louisville Bats. Adam Pettyjohn and Ramon Ramirez had quality starts for the Bats.
The Herd’s bats did wake up on July 18 in a 16-3 thrashing of the Richmond Braves. Michael Aubrey went 1-for-4 with a sac fly and a walk. Aubrey hit a 3-run shot in the 6th to account for 3 of his 5 RBI’s.
July 21 brought the Norfolk Tides into town. The Bisons were one out away from defeating the Tides when reliever Randy Newsom uncorked a wild pitch, allowing the Tides’ Luis Terrero to score the tying run. The Tides would plate 2 in the 11th, but light-hitting third baseman Morgan Ensberg hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the 11th to keep the Herd in it for a few more innings., but the Tides would plate 4 in the 14th to seal an 8-4 victory in a game that took 4 hrs, 41 minutes to play. One happy note from that game was that I got a foul ball that went up the netting, dropped down, and landed 2 sections away from me. I ran as fast as I could and snagged it. I also attended the July 23 game, but I’ll blog about that later. Right now, I wanna throw one in and catch some Z’s.

We’ve been super busy at work, which has relegated me to working lots of nights and taping many ballgames off TV. I have found some benefits to scoring games you record. First off, you can fast-forward through commercials and replays. Also, you can pause the game you’ve recorded when you need to use the facilities or for any other reason. What you decide to do with the media you tape games on is up to you. For example, when you’re done scoring a game you’ve recorded, you can record another game over the game you’ve scored. I’ll probably be giving my VCR a workout starting Friday. Interleague play, baby!

Carlos Quentin had 3 RBIs, including a walk-off solo home run to lead the Chicago White Sox to a 3-2 win over the Anaheim Angels (I will NEVER refer to them as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). I scored the game on ESPN. The game was a quintessential pitchers’ duel, with Jose Contreras recording 10 K’s and allowing only 3 hits. Despite Contreras’s stellar performance, he didn’t even get the win, as Scott Linebrink pitched a 1-2-3 9th inning. John Lackey took the loss in a complete game performance, allowing 6 hits, 3 runs striking out 3, and walking 2 with a hit batsman. Quentin went 3-for-3, earning player of the game honors. The game lasted 2 hours and 5 minutes. Interestingly enough, all 3 of Lackey’s K’s were called.

Last week, I used some vacation time to go see some Buffalo Bisons games. On Monday, the Bisons defeated the Toledo Mud Hens, 7-2 behind Aaron Herr’s two-run homer in the 6th, followed by a Brad Snyder solo shot. Jordan Brown also contributed a two-run double in the third. Henry Mateo hit a two-run dinger in the 8th for the only Toledo tallies. The Bisons’ success ended there, as they were swept by the Syracuse Chiefs to close out their first homestand of 2008. On Tuesday, the Bisons had a 5-3 lead after 4, but had only one hit the rest of the way in a 7-5 loss. Wednesday’s game was a 4-2 loss, with Aaron Herr contributing a two-run double, one of only two hits by the Herd. Thursday brought a 9-7 loss, with Jason Cooper going 3-for-4 with a three-run blast in the 8th.
Monday and Tuesday’s games were played in sunny, but cool weather. Thursday was by far the best day weather-wise, with temps in the high 60′s. I can’t wait to get to more games this season (and score them).

I watched the Opening Series games from Japan and scored both of them. Mark Ellis of the A’s hit the first homer of ’08, a solo shot in the bottom of the 1st inning of Tuesday’s game. Hideki Okajima was Tuesday’s winner, Huston Street had the loss, and Jonathan Papelbon had the first save of the new season. Emil Brown of the A’s had a colossal brainfart in the 10th on Tuesday. He was credited with a double, but got a little too greedy and was thrown out at 3rd on a 9-4-3-5-6-3 play. He made up for that witha 3-run homer in the third on Wednesday. I’m getting ready for Sunday night, when the Nationals open their new ballpark against the Braves on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

I know I haven’t blogged much lately, but there just hasn’t been too  much to blog about. One cool thing that happened was that I got a nice scorebook for Christmas from my brother Tom, who shares my love for scorekeeping. I gave him a copy of Paul Dickson’s The Joy of Keeping Score, which I highly recommended in a previous blog. He loved it.
Work has been slow since the Christmas season ended. Rarely a week goes by in which a truck isn’t canceled, which has resulted in a loss of hours for me. I’ve also been attending Buffalo Bandits lacrosse games, which I’ve held season tickets to since 1993. On January 19th, John Tavares scored his 597th career goal, establishing a league record. he has scored every one of his goals in a Bandits uniform. Before you know it, Opening Day will be here. I can’t wait.

Whether you purchase your scorecard at the ballpark, buy a scorebook, or print scorecards on your computer, the general layout of a scorecard is basically the same. First is a column for the team’s line-up.There will invariably be spaces for the names and positions of the team’s players, although some scorecards will also include spaces for players’ uniform numbers and when they entered the game. There will also be columns for each inning to chart each batter’s plate appearance in that inning. Going across, there are rows to chart the batters’ plate appearance for the game. At the bottom of each column will be space to tabulate the number of hits and runs for that inning, although some will also include space for opponents’ errors committed and runners left on base. Some scorecards even have space to tabulate these totals not only for that inning, but also a running total. Most scorecards will also have space for tabulating batting and pitching summaries. We’ll discuss a sample of scoring in the next blog.