LINCOLN, Neb. (COLN) – Mark Schmideskamp fell in love with baseball as a nine-year-old in the minor leagues. But there was just one problem.
“I was terrified,” Schmideskamp said. “And the coach was always hoping we were in the lead at the time they brought me on. So because I was sitting on the bench so much, he actually taught me how to keep score in the game, just to keep me busy and busy.”
Schiedeskamp eventually left the minor leagues, but he never stopped being a student of the game. After 47 years, he has filled 162 notebooks with 4097 games. He numbers each page to keep track of how many he scored.
“It’s like some people do puzzles or crossword puzzles, and I just like to get out the scorebook and keep score,” Schmideskamp said. “It’s fun and I really enjoy it. This is my hobby and it all started because I was such a terrible baseball player.
He pins the ticket stubs in the corner of each page and uses a color-coding system to keep track of statistics. Pink are home runs, purple are triples, orange are doubles, green are singles, walks are in yellow, and hits are in blue.
Schmideskamp said he has been to all 30 current major league ballparks, 24 major league parks that have been retired and 56 minor league parks. That’s a total of 110 home runs, and that doesn’t include the community and college games in which he also scored.
Having grown up in Los Angeles, Schiedskamp is a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels. When he attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, his friend Dennis Earnest introduced him to the Chicago Cubs and they watched a game at Wrigley Field together. Life in Lincoln brought Schmideskamp to the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.
But he doesn’t stop at team colors as a baseball fan in general. His wife, Annie, is baking him a cake for Opening Day and the start of the World Series.
Of the 4,079 games, Schmideskamp has seen about 500 in person. He carried his notebook and pens to Atlanta, Florida, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Toronto and 83 Royals games. He often goes with his wife or his friend Jan Froman.
They met while working at UPS. After they retire, they go to baseball games and see museums and sights. Schmideskamp is helping Froman achieve his goal of seeing games in all major league parks as well.
“I’m with you for all these trips,” laughed Froman. “Mark knows where to go, where to eat, knows where to get there, and I think that’s great. He knows where the good places are, the not-so-good places, but I’m like, ‘We’re going to do this right. We’ll spend some money.
Some fond memories are when the two flew to a Braves game in Atlanta and back in one weekend. The Toronto Blue Jays created a display on their screen to congratulate Schmideskamp for visiting all MLB stadiums. Schmideskamp once even caught a foul ball in his sombrero at an Arizona Diamondbacks game. He picked up his second foul ball, keeping the score in his 100th game.
For his 4,000th game, Schmideskamp kept a score in a Dodgers game, where he started the hobby in May 1977.
“Nothing really surprised me, other than the extent of his illness is pretty incredible,” Fromman joked as he looked through Schmideskamp’s notebooks. “You don’t see a lot of people doing what he does.”
Next on Schmiedeskamp’s list is a World Series game.
He also owns a large corkboard with souvenir pins, baseball cards with about 30 bobbleheads, autographed jerseys and baseballs, but the most memories come from flipping through his impressive collection of scorebooks.
“Sometimes on TV the broadcasters say, ‘For those of you keeping score at home…'” Schmideskamp said. “And I say, ‘That’s me.'”
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