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Defector ·Small delights

I Taught a Scorekeeping Class and Everybody Came

by Kelsey McKinney

Published 2026-08-17 17:18:56+00:00

How does keeping score on paper make a baseball game belong to you?

0:00 / 7:50 · Narrator Gacrux

Context

A writer decides to host a baseball scorekeeping class at a Philadelphia bar, expecting maybe fifteen people to show up. Instead, over a hundred pack the room. Published on 17 August 2026, this account of the evening captures the sudden appeal of a solitary, grandmotherly craft. Tracking a baseball game on a paper grid might seem like a niche obsession, but the overflowing bar reveals a quiet hunger for doing something slowly, by hand, in a room full of strangers.

Show notes

An account of hosting a public class to teach baseball scorekeeping at a local bar. Documents the planning process, an unexpected turnout of over a hundred attendees, and the mechanics of teaching a crowd to score a live game. Frames the practice not as a strict set of rules, but as a highly personal hobby.

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