I am a baseball fan.

Specifically, I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan, if you want to get technical about it. I didn’t really have much choice in the matter. Some of my earliest memories involve being crammed into my Grandmother’s modest sitting room in her mobile home in PA, watching afternoon games. These were the Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton years. Nana loved the games as much as she loved her grandson, god love her, and my earliest experiences with the game came from her. Dad, a teacher who appreciated brain over brawn ten days out of ten, showed a passing, almost vestigial interest from my early memories. Mom took it a step further and took the stance of not glorifying athletes. So growth was stunted in Baseball, but it grew. Baseball did not really become something that Dad would revive a passion for until I was thirteen (unsurprisingly when I got a better understanding of it myself). At that early age though, I couldn’t understand Dad’s complex relationship with baseball and more importantly with his father (already long passed on by the time I was born) and baseball. Perhaps Dad didn’t either. All I knew was that Mike Schmidt was another name for God (when Mom wasn’t listening), and that I was incredulous of Pete Rose’s release from the team in ’83. I was five. So these kind of things were lost on me then.

It’s funny looking back at it. My buddies at NonTraditionalPocketPasser.com are much more steeped in Baseball history. They attack the sport of baseball with a razor-sharp acuteness that I cannot aspire to. Entire lunch breaks have been lost to discussions on baseball statistics and chronology of the sport. They can even push this knowledge out into other sports: football, basketball and a few others. They are at their core, sports guys. It’s not everything they are, but their inner sports guy dwarfs my own.

However, I still classify myself as a baseball fan. And probably equal in love to the game at my buddies. I’m just not really over-analyzing it. I see stats on a page and my brain shuts off. I care about batting average and ERA at the end of the day; these were the two stats I needed to know about to win at Sports Talk Baseball or World Series Baseball for the Sega Genesis when I was a kid. I know about the other stats like RBI, or On Base Percentage, Wins and Losses. But, in the part of my brain that failed Algebra I the first time around… I don’t care about numbers. Never have. For me, all percentages are 50/50. Either something’s going to happen, or it isn’t. The only numbers I need are the ones on the score board for runs, hits and errors, as well as balls, strikes and outs. Sometimes, numbers just don’t have the answer. Leastwise, not for me (I’m going to be a terrible fantasy baseball player this year).

My mind has never told me to file away baseball stats. If you’ve ever seen me try to keep numbers straight, it is not a pretty thing to see in action. My mind however does file away emotional content. I have a keen memory for that kind of thing, even if numbers and chronology fail me. I can remember being in the nosebleed seats at the Vet when I was only eight or nine years old with my Cub Scout Troop and watching the one of the last seasons Schmidt played in. I remember the lights of the game and how empty the stadium was. The Phils were on the decline from the 1980 season that defined them for some time (though they got fans’ hopes up in ’83 and ’93), but I was nine years old, tops, so I didn’t really get it. The Phils were ‘my team,’ so all I could think of was that the stadium was filled with gods. Why would people not come to the game? I remember the disappointment at not seeing any home runs (the most important baseball event for a nine year old, next to maybe scoring hot dogs). I also remember the disappointment at the Phils losing. Not just a loss, but a crushing defeat. It was, I believe, my first live game.

I remember a few more fleeting, live Phils games here or there in my pre-adolescent years, but nothing noteworthy. After all, they lost these games too, making them forgettable in the eyes of a young child. By now, my grandmother was in a decline, but she still had us come up and visit on Sundays to watch games. These were the Dykstra and Daulton years. The love for baseball still wasn’t really ignited though. I knew that Philadelphia was the family team. It was something accepted and only hazily understood. I still carried the memories of Schmidt and Rose – but cared little for these pale-by-comparison baseball gods.

It changed in 1992. This was a very important year. It was the year that I became traveled. My parents planned out quite the summer for me. In that June, my father took me to England for the first time. And when that was done, we came home, took a breather, and we went out West to see my Aunt and Uncle in Wisconsin. At this point, I had seen Field of Dreams, but it hadn’t really clicked yet. I was just 14 and my emotional hardwiring had yet to truly cement and my world-experience was not yet broad enough to understand the absolutely profound effect it had on my father. I did not understand why this film could reduce him to tears every time he saw it. I did not understand why we were going out into the middle of goddamned Iowa to see a baseball field in a cornfield. I went along with it and started to understand, or maybe it was the heatstroke (it was 104 degrees in sunny Dyersville, IA that day). But something snuck in there. And it was just in time.

Because 1993 was a big goddamned year for Philadelphia.

1992 through 1993 is where I got a more refined understanding of the game. As I watched the assembled team – a motley assembly of almost comic athletic figures (as noted from Steve’s comments below -ed)- scratch and claw and fight their way to the playoffs, I figured things out with some help from my father. At this point he has been rejuvenated in his faith in and for the love of his chosen sport. He told me more stories about baseball in that year than I can remember. He told me about his father coaching the little league game. He taught me about why pitchers seem to love full counts. I gained an appreciation for pitching and for defense. And when the Phils took the pennant out of Atlanta’s mouth that year, I caught the fever full force. I remember feeling charged and excited that season. I remember being  let down and disappointed just a short couple of days later when the Jays took it all away. It was a crushing feeling to see the Phillies only take two games of the series home (Dad got to see one of them via tickets a Neighbor had acquired). It wasn’t our year.

I took it kind of hard. I would have perhaps come back in full stride had the strike not happened then. The only good thing about it was that the Phils held the NL pennant for an additional year. There were no games that year, not Majors games anyhow. It was a good year for Frawley Stadium, home of the Wilmington Blue Rocks (a KC farm team), but it wasn’t the same as seeing the Phils out on the field.

I watched in my last two years of high school and into college for a year or two more, mostly on the television, and mostly on Sundays at Nana’s, like always. When she finally started to slip, her mind no longer functioning at peak after getting emphysema born of some sixty years of chain-smoking, she went to a nursing home after setting her kitchen on fire by way of pure absent-mindedness. Watching games became strained and awkward then. But, we’d go to the home when we could. We’d watch games and try to keep her sane. When she died… I stopped watching regularly. My interest in the team waned. I lost track of who the players were. Watching the Phils between ’99 and ’07 was a difficult proposition. I had new passions, new friends, new hobbies.

There were, however, a few banner games in the lean years: I saw one of the last games played in the Vet. It was heartbreaking to see the old venue first close its doors forever, then to see it torn down a few months later. The Vet was one of the few remaining ball parks in America that wasn’t named with the marketing of a megacorp in mind. Predictably, like every other game I’d ever seen live, the Phils lost. Another good one during this time was when my sister was highest bidder for her company’s box seats at the newly built Citizen’s Bank Park. We surprised my Grandfather (on Mom’s side) for his birthday, also a Phillies fan, with the spoils of said auction. I find it strange that I didn’t spend more time with Pop in my youth watching games – though that’s another story – though I’ve made up for it since. That game was versus the Kansas City Royals, and, like every other live game I’d seen to that point, the Phils lost again. But we watched that lost game with more free beer and food than I’d ever seen offered at any game before in my life. We also got to go to picnic games for the Wilmington Blue Rocks, the local KC farm team, on the company dime a couple times too. We brought Pop to as many of these as we could too. There’s a certain virtue to A-Ball. No one wants to be in A-Ball any longer than they have to, so every player pushes as hard as they can to get to the next tier, to make it big. There was also the fact that the Rocks could win in games I saw live at the stadium. This was something I could not say of the Phils, who only ever won when I watched on the television, and was not to be discounted.

But, I got my faith restored in 2008, the year that the Phils went onto the big game and finally won the World Series. It had been 28 long years. I had been born slightly before the win in ’80, so I had grown up, learned to read, gone to college, become a man, and started a career before I saw my next series win. When Lidge threw that final closing pitch, I completely lost my shit and ran to neighboring friend’s places in my complex with a vigor and animation that was refreshing. 28 years of eating crap sandwiches sucked. So to get a team like we had in ’08 was a whole new feeling.

After the series, I saw my next live game in ’09. In a game versus the Nationals, I saw my first live win. Playing the Nationals, there was little doubt of any other outcome. It was 5-1 and I saw it with a friend of mine who was new to baseball and has since seen the light that Baseball is a pretty good goddamned sport. He still would say Football is better, but no one is perfect.

Every so often I score company seats. The Nats game was one case, and so was the first game in the NCLS Post-Season against the Giants (a loss). The company seats are great – just under the eaves of the upper deck so, rain-or-shine, you get a good view. Every so often, a friend who has season tickets can’t make a game and sends them my way or to other like-minded friends. I make the most of these. I love being in the stadium, feeling the rush of the crowd as the game plays out.

And while I do this, I’m not thinking of numbers save for the score. I’m thinking of the game. I’m thinking of the friends and family I’m there with – because you never should go to a ballgame alone. I think of how the crack of the bat makes me feel, or savoring the sound of a fastball coming into the catcher’s mitt as it strands three base-runners under the stare of an aggravated batter (and a lot of those times, that batter is Ryan Howard, unfortunately – win some, lose some). It’s watching the team make the decisions that win or lose games and start or end careers. It’s about seeing the ball go over the fence and hearing the neon bell ring at CBP as the basemen bring home the runs. It’s about standing up and clapping and booing at all of the appropriate and inappropriate times (part of being a Philadelphian sports fan). It’s about getting my grandfather out there in the twilight of his life, making sure he’s getting as many games in as he can before the time comes when I can’t do it any longer. It’s about seeing him smile and watch the game like a ten-year-old kid stuck in an 87-year-old WWII vet’s body. In that second live game win I’ve witnessed, my grandfather was there for it with me, sitting on the first-base side, both of us freezing as we took in the next to last spring training game at CBP this past March.

That’s why baseball is about so much more than numbers to me. Baseball is about spirit. It’s about power and precision. It’s about acumen and guile. It’s about the feel of America and the pastime of a nation.

Baseball is what’s in my heart – not numbers or stats.

And for me, therein lies all the difference.

I imagine it should come as no surprise that as someone who likes to string words together for fun (and hopefully profit someday) likes to play Scrabble. Words are kind of becoming my stock and trade between my day job, my hobbies and my side endeavors. Hacking those words up into letters isn’t too far a stretch, nor is moving those letters around in a strategically advantageous manner. It’s exactly like writing in that respect on a more granular scale.

I didn’t get a chance to learn Scrabble early. Scrabble is something I picked up on recently within the past two years or so. In my youth I asked to be taught how to play, but was met with sighs from both parents and a negative response. Only years later did I learn that there was a reason for this. Mom always kicked Dad’s ass in Scrabble; dad was a sore loser after many defeats and wanted no part of it. They both used to love it until Mom’s domination over the playing field pushed him off of it.

But, with the advent of social media, Scrabble became available on Facebook. And there, I started playing a few friends. It came in a small, trickling stream at first. But, eventually, my mother found out you could play online and we started playing. At first, Mom and I wrestled. Mom was (and is) a good player. I can see why she beats my father regularly – not because dad doesn’t have an extensive vocabulary (he’s the only person in the house fluent in more than one language, which means he’s pretty good on words to draw from) but because he’s trying too hard to make words with what he has on the rack than placing a smaller number of tiles more effectively. Well, that and the fact that he’s impatient. But, he’s getting better.

After a while though, I learned how Mom worked out her moves in Scrabble. My win percentage versus her went up, and soon my sister was accusing me of cheating against Mom (sadly, the electronic divide allows much room for cheating). At the time I was using the built-in tool, ‘teacher’, to learn better strategy. It can give an edge, but it’s an edge given to all sides in Facebook Scrabble, so I didn’t really think of it as cheating, and I welcomed them to use it. After a series of victories over my mother, Mom stopped playing against me unless we were in larger games. Whether or not this is because she likes family inclusion or wanted to at least not come in last I’ll never know – but debate amongst family is lively.

After a time, an imitator to Scrabble appeared: Words With Friends. It has the same basic gameplay elements with only a few differences. Particularly, the scoring of certain tiles differs, and there are more opportunities for overlapping strategic tiles (resulting in higher scoring games). There are also no tools built in. So long as you’re not going to Scrabble cheat sites, it makes for fair games. I presume most people I play with – all people I know for the most part – play honorably. Since WWF (hah!) has a free app for Droid and iPhone platforms alike, my availability of friends to play against is larger. It also has no built in tools like ‘Teacher’,  which presumably leads to more balanced gameplay, provided both opponents stay off of cheat sites. For these reasons, WWF gets more time spent on it. I do pretty well here too. I hate to sound like a douchebag, but Scrabble/WWF is one of the few things I’m actually good at. However this does not translate to me winning all the time. In fact, I welcome more skilled opponents. They teach me different strategies and tactics to play more effectively. I learn from my mistakes. And oh boy, do I make mistakes sometimes.

All of this of course is a long way ’round manner of introducing a breakdown of strategies/player types.

Snap into a tile set, brother!

So, I’m going to endeavor to label a couple of archetypes/behaviors when it comes to players. I doubt you’d find anyone who fits exactly into these categories as people who have only a single play style quickly find themselves getting beat up on. However, they are core Scrabble/WWF behaviors. Insofar as I can tell, here’s what you usually end up with:

The Plotter

The Plotter is only concerned with one thing: what happens after I play this next word? Taking their time, Plotters seek not so much to advance their point total, so much as to deny an advantageous play for their opponent while simultaneously leaving as many options open for themselves. These are long term strategy players who count how many S’s are on the board, and are thinking about if the players has high scoring tiles. They are incredibly proactive. Each tile is placed with the goal of making sure that TWS and TLS squares are as isolated and hard to use as possible, then making sure that DWS and DLS tiles are equally improbable after that. Plotters are also prone to take their time in placing letters. While this works out well for plotters online (where games are untimed in most cases), though playing in the flesh with an three-minute timer nearby can be nerve wracking for them. However, with a mind that is focused on what the next player might try, they tend to come up with shorter words when pressed. Furthermore, Plotters can set up an enticing trap as well, in which  their opponents take advantage of something, only to find that the next move undoes everything the last move did. The Plotter can be a vexing opponent to those who have an eye for maximizing gain, but can be defeated through the application of equal patience and a little luck.

The Etymologist

This player tends to focus on a very eccentric vocabulary. It’s a strange combination of using words like Dhow, Kue, or Etoile (which spell check here informs me are not words – yet are all legal in WWF). If you’ve ever played someone who’s an Etymologist, you’ve probably shouted to them or yourself, ‘Do you even know what that word means?!’ Many players pick up a stable of very weird but very short words (Ki, Qi, Qat, Za) simply because you need to know them, but the Etymologist will beat you to death not only with their own terrifying words, but with your own words as well. Verse becomes ‘Averse’ or ‘Reverse’ or ‘Converse’ or ‘Conversed’ – and almost always over a triple or double word score that you just couldn’t quite reach when you originally placed your now traitorous word. More frustratingly, they find multiple places to turn your words against you if you’re not careful, making them very difficult to block. However, they are not completely impossible to beat either. Players who can maximize a small game find two letter words to stack up against the long strings of tiles for maximum effect, often using bonus tiles to get up to speed, or quickly find ways to pluralize the bigger of the Etymologist’s words.

The Hater

The Hater tends to focus on one thing: reflexively taking what’s available before the opponent can grab it. This archetype is a subtle variant on the Plotter. They initially look alike, but, unlike the Plotter, the Hater is more reactive and has needs to be immediately met, often time without the benefit of planning anything beyond hating on the chosen square(s) that have been recently encroached on. While this sounds bad or shortsighted, it can work out for the Hater. When Haters hate (like they are wont to do) on a TWS with the word ‘Oh’ or something similarly terse or low scoring, The Hater makes a play at making sure that if his or her opponent has a great opportunity to place something devastating that they’re  certainly going to have a hard time doing it without that oh-so-important square. However, in the name of blocking off what could only be a theoretical advantage to their opponents, Haters short-shrift themselves by not really scoring big points in the process since they only care about screwing the player’s next move. The best way to beat Haters is to goad them into defensive blocks while preparing a word somewhere else that you can get a lot out of without necessarily gaming on bonus tiles – usually with tightly-packed two-letter words.

The Shortie

Shorties are extremely frustrating. They excel at keeping words short, and condensed, making it harder to keep the words growing from the center of the board. They are particularly good at making multiple words on the board, even if they’re terse, and making sure to nickel and dime the opponent at every step. This can lead to them being just as frustrated as their opponent, but it quickly becomes a matter of bluffing their opponents into finally branching out with something big, but low scoring, or by forcing them into swapping tiles. This of course sets their opponents up to create the next logjam if the opponent isn’t careful. It’s at this point that the Shortie starts in on this tactic again. The best way to beat a shortie is to throw out a ‘C’ or a ‘V’ at them at some point. These are the ONLY two letters in the game you can’t make a two letter word out of – and shorties hate them.

The Churl

The Churl is best summed up by this web comic. The Churl really shouldn’t be playing Scrabble. In fact, if you put the Churl into a timed, face-to-face game, the Churl likely can’t play. When it comes down to it, it’s unlikely that Churls have a very good or broad vocabulary. Living almost exclusively on the internet frontier, they use an internet hacking tactic: brute force exploitation. They’ll place their highest scoring letters on bonus tiles and start wailing on letters until they happen upon a word the game will accept. It’s frustrating to play this type of player because they are so hard to predict. With bonus tiles spanning the board, you find them taking ones you may not have thought of that frustratingly block your next move. It’s also very easy to mistake them for an Etymologist since the words they generate are so off the wall. They are the lowest common denominator for the most part (or at least they are in this writer’s opinion), but, regardless of how much other player types may not like them, ultimately just about every other player type will resort to this tactic if they are swamped hard enough online. Myself included. I guess that means I’m s self-loather sometimes. I can live with that.

The Explorer

The Explorer likes to sprawl out across the board. ‘Proper’ placement and point coup is the last thing on the explorer’s mind. While this doesn’t mean much in terms of attaining victories (unless playing another Explorer), the Explorer is good at learning. They spend a lot of time making words that are longer, but unlike the Etymologist, this player will use simpler words and without a lot of eye for future planning. They tend to put out words as they come to them. They also rarely exhibit any Shortie leanings. If the Explorer isn’t taking up space as they sprawl outward, they are usually really struggling for a word, and ultimately they like to leave options open rather than close them off. The explorer is also usually exceedingly friendly. They’re not high scorers and feel no pressure to be so. Every so often they will surprise you though, and occasionally they metamorphosize into another type of player entirely once their legs are under them.

The Squirrel

The Squirrel is a bit of a gambler, even though their behavior doesn’t belie this. The average player won’t spot the Squirrel until end game when they realize ‘where are all of  the high scoring letters?’ By then it’s too late, and that’s what makes them dangerous. It is only when you’re down to five letters on your rack and no tiles left in the bag that you realize you’re fighting the Squirrel. Because Q, J, Z and/or X aren’t on your rack… but the Squirrel, he or she has them. The Squirrels do exactly what you’d think from their name: they tuck things away for later. They keep those high scoring letters until far later in the game than most players would feel comfortable with. In addition, they know all of the crushing two-letter words to play using them, and they have been waiting to use them when they’re needed. Sure, they could have played them seven or eight turns ago, but the Squirrel is incredibly patient. They then gobble up the lead, and leave their opponents in the dust. The plotter can defeat the Squirrel if they catch on early enough, or I.D. the Squirrel before the game starts, but they’ll have a difficult time of it. However, if one can stymie the Squirrel’s easy, two-tile plays at the end of the game, it’s possible to clean up when it comes time to take penalty points.

Aberrant Player Types