Pens

The other night when I was covering a high school football game, I brought eight pens with me. I don't think anyone could accuse me of being under-prepared.
But sure enough, it was a little on the cold side and three plays into the game every single pen I had, all eight of them, was bone-dry. What are the odds of that?
I ended up borrowing a pencil from a trainer and was able to get through the game OK.
Obviously, the moral of the story is to use pencils, not pens, but I don't remember having these kinds of problems before with pens. Are pens just not as well-made as they were in the past? Are there any kinds of pens that are more likely to work in cold weather? These were Bic ballpoints, the cheap kind.

 

I always used mechanical pencils when it was cold. I'd have prefered a pen (easier to read), but at least I always had a working writing utensil.

 

Eight pens? Holy shit. I usually only carry three on me (though I usually have an open package of pens in my bag).

Bics SUCK. I wouldn't use a Bic with a gun to my head. The pens always run dry quickly...and I cannot tell you how many pairs of jeans I ruined in high school because a Bic pen exploded in my back right pocket.

I have been an ardent fan of PaperMate for as long as I can remember. They just re-designed the pens and the first pack I bought was pretty shitty, but I've had good luck since then.

Taters, did you ever think of recording the PBP in your tape recorder? I did that during a particularly frigid football game because it was too goddamn cold to write and it worked out pretty well. I was so cold I didn't care if people were looking at me funny.

 

Not a bad idea, but I like to have the written record when I do stats.

 

The new blue Papermates have a barrel that's the same shiny blue as the NY Giants helmets.

Doesn't hurt to have a Flair or two loaded in your pen stash. They write through anything. If you really want to be prepared, get a fine point Sharpie. They'll work if you have to take notes on McDonald's wrappers.

 

I used one of those Space Pens for years and loved it. Damn thing never froze up on me (although the metal could get a little warm in the summer).
It was advertised as a pen that would even work under water. Problem was, I never found paper that did the same.

 

Try the fine-point Sharpies ... those will do you good in cold weather.

 

And yet, I can picture you underwater, trying...

 

I swear by the blue Papermate medium points and probably have eight in my bag. I hold the pen pretty tight and have snapped the odd one but I've never had one go on me and I work in some pretty cold rinks.

 

I've never had a pen freeze on me. I'm glad, now. I never have pencils.

I prefer fine point. At all times.

 

I buy one of those 24-pack fine-point Sharpie's things once a year and comp that bitch to the company. I use the shit out of Sharpie's.

I use four different-colored pens per game. I color code by quarter to make the stats easier to decipher if I need to break them down by quarter for some reason. Helps with prep basketball gamers more than football, though I rarely do prep basketball anymore.

I started using that color-code concept for baseball a year or two ago too. Dark color for no-out at-bats, medium color for one-out at-bats, light color for two-out at-bats (that sounds gayish anal, but if you mix that combination up, it doesn't work because a dark color would blot out a no-out light color).

Amazing how much clearer that system makes your baseball scorebook, especially good for deadline gamers where you don't have a box score/play-by-play to consult.

The only drawback? Sharpie's bleed through the paper. A lot of old-schoolers also use a color system, but use one of those four-color, four-ball-point mechanical pens.

However, my gayness is so vast I can't limit myself to red, blue, black and green. I need to jazz it up! Light purple! Gold! Olive green! Tangerine!

 

You can actually buy reporter's pads that are water-proof.
A photog I know swears by them.
Put one of those four-in-one pens in you stash. They can be hard to find, but they are outstanding, especially if you color-code. The upside is that even if one color runs out, you still have three more to choose from.