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This week I had no job, no boss, nowhere to be and nothing to do -- which is exactly what I needed. Not starting at EA until Monday, it was time for an extended holiday of the mind, which could only mean one thing...baseball geekout.
So on Thursday, I got together with the illustrious Shawn Roberts, my former colleague at Future, and himself a noted baseball geek. The both of us having the day to waste, we hatched a two-part plan that we immediately entitled Baseball Geekout Day.
Part One: Ballgame. Meet up at Telephone Conglomerate Park to take in an early-afternoon Giants-Marlins game. Shawn scored a pair of sweet lower-box tickets.
Part Two: Strat-o-Matic Duel. Strat-o-Matic is a beyond-nerdy tabletop baseball game played entirely with statistical charts and dice. Shawn, like me, has had a lifelong obsession with the statistical universe surrounding the game of baseball, and, like me, has had a lifelong interest in stats-based tabletop simulations. It's a good thing he and I have other qualities, because if women saw us playing Strat-o-Matic Baseball, we'd be off their "boyfriend radar" forever.
After taking in a surprisingly entertaining ballgame, the two of us headed into ACME Chophouse, the fancy restaurant located inside the Giants stadium. We spread out our Strat-o-Matic charts all over the table, and out came a handful of dice (included the Holy Grail of nerdness -- a 20-sided die). And we played! While our servers scrunched up their faces in total confusion, we played a 2004 Athletics vs. 2004 Red Sox contest (Shawn seeing his A's through to a thrilling 6-4 victory), and then we made it a time-warping double-header by playing a 2001 Giants vs. 2001 A's matchup. (I'm pleased to say I evened the score, winning the second game 4-0 behind a sensational eight-inning performance from Jason Schmidt, who used to be good in 2001 but sucks eggs now.)
Shawn and I have always been like-minded comrades on the business front, and now that we're no longer co-workers, our true inner spaz can finally come out and "speak its name."
I declared this a highly successful Baseball Geekout Day and hopefully we can make time for more.
2 comments:
This actually sounds like a pretty fantastic day. Not for me, but in theory. If there's a game in town next week, we should go. But count me out for stat-o-matic...if that's that crazy thing that Dad plays all night I'd rather stare at the wall and hum.
It's nice to be unemployed once in a while. Savor the feeling cause it never lasts.
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