The Quest for 2000 Innings

This season I vow to do one thing. I want to watch more innings of baseball than I’ve ever watched before.

I vow this year to watch more innings of baseball than I ever have before. That's my promise

— Diamond Hoggers (@DiamondHoggers) February 14, 2013

I stated this on twitter weeks ago, and I mean it. I don’t always stick to plans, but I can honestly say I am going to watch more baseball in 2013 than I’ve ever done before, my wife be damned. She won’t like it, and a lot of things won’t get done around here. But you only live once and this is the year I’m going to really push the numbers.

I haven’t documented my past baseball watching before. This will be a case study of sorts, and I’m going to document every single time I watch innings on this very blog. We’re going to keep a running tally.

To watch 162 full Major League games would be 1,458 innings. Well I’m going to go a step further than that. That’s what the diehard fan would do. I don’t believe in doing the bare minimum. I’m going to shoot high and go for 2000 innings flat. There are rules to abide by in this quest:

1. Every time I watch baseball, I’m going to document the innings that I watch right here. You’ll be able to see it because it will say “Watch Report:” followed by the game(s) I watched the night of or before.
2. If I don’t get it up on the blog within 24-48 hours, it doesn’t count. Sorry Charlie, cheaters aren’t allowed in this club.
3. I am allowed to have two games going at once. For instance, the Reds can be on my living room television while another team is on the computer or iPhone.
4. No flipping channels in the middle of an inning or the inning doesn’t count. This includes pitching changes and Joey Votto 17-pitch at bats. If it is in the middle of an inning I can flip to another game or channel but that inning doesn’t count on another channel.
5. I’ll keep other off the wall stats just to make things interesting.
6. The count only goes during the regular season. Postseason games won’t be part of the tally, however I will count the All-Star Game.
7. Live innings count if I’m at the game.

There are few things in the world I love more than baseball so I figure setting out on this little vision quest will be something of a test for me but I know I can accomplish it. Feel free to follow along at home with your own 2000 innings club quest, if you think you’re man enough or don’t plan on having a real life for six months.

Someone contact the Guiness Book of World Records or something. Get them ready. I can’t go to the MLB Fan Cave because I’m not interesting enough and because I have to have a real job to provide for my family. But that doesn’t mean I can’t knock off work early on a Friday to catch a few innings of the Cubbies getting smoked at Wrigley to kick off a weekend of nothing but baseball watching.