#RespectYourElders: Are you as big of a baseball fan as Ruth Turner? Turner, at the age of 92, has been attending and unofficially keeping score of New York Yankees home games for the past 25 years.
Turner, also known as the “lady with the radio” can be spotted at every game in Section 105, marking plays with one hand and holding a radio to her ear to listen to the broadcast with the other.
Turner has always loved sports, and ran an office football pool while working at Consumer Reports. During a job at the United Press International’s sports department, she began going to Yankees games. After her divorce in 1990, she bought Yankees season tickets and took to keeping score at every home game.
“For me, baseball is life and the rhythm of life,” Turner recently told the New York Times.
Attending Yankees games has also helped Turner cope with her cancer diagnosis last year. She also stays positive with an upbeat attitude and busy schedule.
Turner may be at every Yankees game, but she fills up her schedule with more than baseball. Her “insane” calendar is full of New York Knicks games, lunch and dinner dates and theatre performances. Some days, she catches an afternoon Yankees game before making her way to the Metropolitan Opera.
“My doctor sees that I live quite a life, and he tells me to go on and enjoy it,” she said.
Turner said she will continue to live as actively as possible and wants to remain the “scorekeeper” of Yankees games for as long as possible.
“[Keeping score at Yankees games] will be the last thing to go.”
Read more about the Yankees’ “grandstand scorekeeper” here.