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As a Reds fan, Grandma's Reds Scorebook is the most interesting social media account I've found this year
I think it was around Opening Day when I came across @GScorebook where a man, Mike in Louisville, Kentucky posts photos of his grandmother's Reds scorebook that she built from 1973-1991 while listening to Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on 700 WLW. There are notebook pages that document it all. There's a page for Rob Dibble fighting a guy in 1991. There's a page where, unbeknownst to grandma, Jeff Bagwell gets his first MLB hit. And there's a scoresheet for Hank Aaron's 715th because Monday Night Baseball was broadcasting that game and she was watching.
To be honest, the scorebook pages are great works of art. They're better than Baseball-Reference.com. This was Twitter in the 70s, 80s and 90s. @GScorebook even noted on one page that "(Mario) Soto is BACK and in good shape!!"
Why did this account hit me in the gut? Because my great-grandmother had a life similar to Mike's grandmother's, minus the keeping score thing. Grandma Moodler was a member of the Rosie Reds fan group that would travel the United States for Reds games. Like Mike's grandmother, Grandma Moodler did whatever it took to catch the Reds on the radio and later on her vintage cable box.
The scorebook pages take me back to those simpler times as a kid when sitting down to watch nine innings with Marty and Joe on the radio was just part of life. It reminds me of my great-grandmother following along religiously as Pete chased Ty Cobb. I'm reminded of my grandfather taking me over to her trailer to check up on her. One of his jobs was to make sure she was prepped for game times and channels, if the games were on TV. My great-grandmother passed June 28, 1990 right as the Reds were in the middle of going wire-to-wire.
Now here I am, all these years later, looking through these scorebook pages left behind by Mike in Louisville's grandmother. They're bringing back incredible memories of simpler times, and that's such a good thing these days.
• Mike tells me his plan is to donate the scorebooks to the Reds Hall of Fame as they're becoming fragile. Yes, we can just look up things on the Internet these days, but there will forever be something about written records of events in history, even if it's some random 1983 Reds game when the team went 74-88 under Russ Nixon.
• In other baseball news, J. Lo and ARod are officially officially finished. Again, I've said it many times, never saw this coming. Just kidding! Now this fraudster wants to buy an NBA team -- have to believe he'll end up with like 2% of the team, but he needs his name in the press as the new owner to keep his ego going strong. Never, ever buy what ARod's selling.
• Where are people blowing those stimulus checks? New data out says retail wins again followed by bars and restaurants. I'm patiently awaiting golf clubs to hit Facebook Marketplace in 2023 as guys give up the sport again.