Grandma’s Scorebook

[Ron Madden]

The legacy of Minnie Lee Olges and her incredible creation of the most precious baseball scorecards and much more from 1973-1991.

Minnie Lee handmade her scorecards and developed her own unique scoring system. As you will see, her scorebooks are much more than just historical artifacts of what happened on the field, they are a living and breathing daily journal with a genuine heartbeat.

Minnie Lee Olges started keeping score at the beginning of the 1973 season after she retired at the age of 67. She would listen to the Cincinnati Reds radio broadcast and keep score until the end of the 1991 postseason at the age of 86. She fell in love with Major League Baseball over those 19 seasons and she would become one of baseball’s most passionate, dedicated, and loyal fans that no one knew about until now. This is her love letter to Major League Baseball.

Minnie Lee recorded over 3,000 games in her scorebooks. She was so fortunate to experience three Cincinnati Reds World Series championships in 1975, 76, & 90. She recorded many of baseball’s most iconic and memorable moments such as Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, Carlton Fisk’s walk-off Game 6 home run, Reggie Jackson’s three home runs in Game 6, Tom Seaver’s no-hitter, Fred Lynn’s All-Star Game grand slam, Pete Rose’s 4,192nd hit, and her very last game, Jack Morris’ Game 7 masterpiece. She recorded history and she left behind an absolute treasure. Now it is time to open up her scorebooks and share them with all baseball fans. This is a tribute to this extraordinary woman, with the purest and most beautiful soul, my grandma, our beloved Minnie Lee.

MARTY BRENNAMAN:
"What she did, it’s incredible, really unbelievable. It’s almost incomprehensible, to try and explain to somebody how in-depth she went, basically documenting day to day, the ups and downs of this baseball team, for a lot of years," Brennaman said. "For someone to have such a passion for the game, and particularly for a team, to do that on a daily basis over a period of that many years is just mind-boggling"

Please visit https://www.grandmasscorebook.com/

https://www.grandmasscorebook.com/

https://mobile.twitter.com/GScorebook

[westofyou]

Good Twitter follow

[cumberlandreds]

Here is the actual website that you can go to. This is a real treasure. Very fortunate that she preserved it for her grandson and that he treasured it too. She was a baseball historian and didn't even realize it. But above all she was a very good human being.


https://www.grandmasscorebook.com/

[*BaseClogger*]

Ron, what source are you quoting in the OP?

[Ron Madden]

Ron, what source are you quoting in the OP?

https://www.grandmasscorebook.com/

[cumberlandreds]

Reading this about Minnie Lee and her love of baseball reminded me of a time I attended a Reds game, probably in the early 80's. I had a seat up in the red seats. One row behind were these two little old ladies. They came in talking away with each other. I thought, Oh no I am going to have l listen to innate boring talk while trying to enjoy a baseball game. Once the game started these two old ladies knew knew their baseball. They knew all the players very well. They knew the game too. Such as, what should happen in certain instances and who was playing well and who was struggling. I'm sure they knew more details about things than I did. It turned into a joy listening to them throughout this game. I surmised these ladies had been friends most of their adult lives. They had probably attended games together with their husbands for many, many years. Now they were widowed and they wanted to keep baseball as their connection to their husband and each other. I thought about them over the years and felt it was just beautiful. I hope they had quite a few more good years after that day.

[Ron Madden]

The Legacy

Minnie Lee was passionate about three things, her faith, her family, and the Cincinnati Reds.
You can clearly see this throughout her scorebooks. Her notebooks were much more than a scorebook, they became her journal. She lived alone and didn’t have cable TV, but she did have her radio. Each game she tuned in to listen to Marty Brennaman & Joe Nuxhall. When she started keeping score in 1973, it was Al Michaels and Joe Nuxhall and starting in 1974 it was Marty & Joe.

Her love for baseball and the Cincinnati Reds wore off on me and we created a very special bond. I’m Mike Murphy and Minnie Lee Olges was my grandma and baseball buddy. We were truly blessed that she lived seven houses down the street from us.

Grandma never had a drivers license, so this allowed for many opportunities for us to get to spend a tremendous amount of quality time with each other. She would ride to church with us every Sunday morning. We would take her to all parties, family reunions, doctor appointments and the grocery. Some of my fondest memories were the weekly trips to the grocery with her and my mom. I would always ride up front between them in our Oldsmobile.

I would get my weekly allowance of .25 cents and I would buy a pack of Topps baseball cards. On the drive home I would open my Topps pack sitting next to Grandma. I’m absolutely certain that she looked forward to this each week as much as I did.

The 1978 Topps set is when I became hooked on collecting baseball cards. There are two specific cards from that 1978 Topps set that will forever be my favorite baseball cards of all time. The first card was # 350, Steve Garvey.

The other card was #354, Cesar Geronimo. He was a Reds player and I remember asking her who he was. When she read his name to me, Cesar Geronimo, it was mystical. I made her repeat his name many times on that drive home. Cesar Geronimo sounded like the name of a movie star to me.

read more of The Legacy here:
https://www.grandmasscorebook.com/the-legacy/