PENCIL? THE GRANDFATHER JUDD USED A FOUNTAIN PEN:

At about 3 ¼ inches long and with no eraser on top, the pencil has helped carry on the traditional method of scoring a ballgame that is generally believed to have begun with a late 19th-century sportswriter named Henry Chadwick.

Levy, who grew up near Yankee Stadium and who attends a few games every season, vowed to continue the struggle for conventional scorekeeping's survival.

"I'm going to teach my son tonight," he said. The boy, Aaron Levy, 15, admitted that he did not know the proper markings -- a 9-2 putout (right field to catcher) from a backward K (strikeout looking).

His grandfather, Ira Antin, said one deterrent to ballpark scorekeeping has been the inability to purchase a mere scorecard.

"I worked across the street in the old Stadium in the 1940s, selling ice cream," he said. "They sold scorecards for a nickel."

At Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park, in Charleston, S.C. -- where Alex Rodriguez played recently for the Yankees' Class A Riverdogs -- a more traditional program with a scorecard included sold for $1 and did a brisk business. But the advertising-rich program sold at Yankee Stadium, which has a scorecard in the centerfold, costs $10. The mini pencil -- inscribed "New York Yankees" -- is part of the deal.

Many people said they wanted the program only as a souvenir and opted not to take the pencil. But Stephan Loewenthil of New Rochelle happily took it while forking over his $10.

"For me it's still a bargain, and it's not about buying a souvenir," he said. "It's about making the game more immediate, keeping me locked in."

Loewenthil, 63, was taught to keep score by his father at Yankee Stadium when he was 6 ½ years old. 

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