As I populated an Excel spread sheet to assist a client manage their new Content Marketing campaign, I was struck by how it would serve as a scorecard to keep track of the program going forward.

“YOU CAN’T TELL A PLAYER WITHOUT A SCORECARD!” That’s what I remember from the first time I went with my cousin Ellen and Aunt Claire to sit in their season box seats at Shea Stadium.

I was maybe 10 at the time and I had never sat in a Field Box seat before. It is that day I first heard the phrase, “Amazing Mets”. Sitting in a seat just 20 rows from the field was AMAZING!

But, what I remember most about that day, was that it was the first time I ever kept score at a Big League game.

My Aunt bought me a scorecard and a cool little pencil with which to scrawl in the names and positions of the starting nine.

My cousin Ellen, 18 months older than me, had her own scorebook. She started to keep score the previous season and seemed to know her way around the Do’s and Dont’s of keeping track of the action on the field.

After we got settled in our seats and finished off a hot dog with spicy mustard the lesson on how to keep score of a Mets’ game began.

Ellen pointed me to the top of the 10 story tall scoreboard just beyond the right center field fence. The scoreboard was adorned with the Rheingold beer sign and other products trying to connect with Mets fans who travelled to Willets Point and pay the hefty $3.50 for a box seat or less for the upper level seats.

“Look at the top right. See under Mets, they list the batting order, last name and position. Write them down in your scorecard.” And, with what I had recently learned in elementary school, with extra coaching from my teacher, since I am left handed, I carefully wrote in the last names and their positions.

After I had done the Mets’ line up, Ellen showed where the visiting team was listed on the scoreboard and I wrote the names and positions of the visitors on their part of my very first scorecard.

The one quirk I had to remember was which way to write a “K” when the batter struck out. The right way if he struck out swinging. But if he struck out looking, it had to be a backwards “K”. I guess to identify that he did a bad thing by not swinging at a pitch that was good enough to be called a strike.

I liked the part when I got to draw a circle in the box, to signify a run, around the one, two, three or four dashes I wrote in for a hit. Ellen said, it was sort of like he circled the bases. I thought about how that was a good way to remember that.

When I suggested to my client that we would use an Excel Spreadsheet to keep track of the lineup of pieces of Content and where and when they would be posted, she responded, “Like a Mets scorecard.”

I smiled and turned away and thought about the beautiful Spring day in Queens, when my cousin, who had passed away the week before, taught me how to write a “K” in the right direction.

Thanks cuz.

Call me when you need help with your Scorecard.

Stay safe,

Steven