Scorekeeping as an experience

Chalk and Ink scorebook creator Kevin has been a lifelong baseball fan. He grew up loving the Astros to the point of creating, alongside his brother, a Lance Berkman fangroup, called the Little Pumas (they’d dress up in costume for every game). Now that he has been living in Baltimore for nearly a decade, Kevin has adopted the Orioles as his local team.

A few years ago, Kevin was at a game with his wife Amy and they came across an older couple scorekeeping the game together. “She thought it was such a beautiful, sweet moment, and I said That could be us someday,” shares Kevin. He realized then that they could start scorekeeping now and build up those memories over time.

So they did start keeping score, cycling through scorecards and different books as they went to games or watched them on television. “Part of it is being more engaged in the game, of course,” Kevin says, “But its also a bonding thing. We’re building this thing that we can look back on in the future.”

Soon, Kevin realized that the books he was using weren’t quite right for the style of scorekeeping he wanted to do. He began coming up with designs and testing them. With each iteration came changes, more justified lines, the addition of colored bars along the top, and an adjustment of how the diamonds look on the page.

Thus began Chalk and Ink, a premium, archival-quality scorebook with a sleek design. The black and silver foil cover recalls Kevin’s own history with the Astros, as a graphic representation of the Astrodome, with each rectangle representing a window. For Kevin, Chalk and Ink isn’t just about the engaging with the game, but about the entire experience of going to a baseball game. The book includes a space to list who you’ve attended the game with as well as what you’ve eaten. “I wanted to focus more on the experience of watching the game and the root of this is the idea of doing it with my wife and having this be a shared experience.”

Kevin funded this project through a successful campaign on Kickstarter. The first shipment of book should go out just before Opening Day, and he’s very excited to hear how people respond to it. “I want to listen to their feedback, and if they have ideas for thing to change, I’m definitely going to listen.”

Chalk and Ink Scorebooks are currently available for purchase here.