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Here's what happened...

It was time to renew the registration on my car and consider the annual question about vanity plates. I'm not real big on showing off how clever I am. It's much easier for eyewitnesses to remember cute monikers than random alpha-numerics, and that limits the types of acceptable felonies I can commit. But Sue had just gotten vanity tags on her car, and she and the girls were egging me on.

So I did what every good Dad does. I caved.

But what should it say? With a 7-character max, my options were limited. Nothing cute. No STATMAN or 4CASTER. Nothing with RON in it.

I finally settled on something that nobody would recognize. At least nobody in this neck of football country. A Pure Quality Start score of 5.

I am now the proud owner of a perfect pitching outing. Of course, I am not a pitcher, and if I was, I'd most likely post a PQS-0 than a PQS-5. But aren't vanity plates about being vain? About living the dream?

So, since November 2010 I have been driving around southwest Virginia proclaiming - albeit surreptitiously - that I have pitched a masterful game. I might have hurled a 2-hit shut-out. I might have only gone 7 innings but struck out 8 and walked only 2. Heck, I might have even thrown a no-hitter. (I would have said perfect game, but I didn't want to shoot high.) Nobody knows except me. But it still feels oddly satisfying.

Perhaps more odd, though, is the fact that nobody has yet asked me what my license plate means. I did explain it to Sue and the girls... and it's okay, I'm used to blank stares in this house. But nobody else has inquired.

It could be anything, after all. It could be my monogram and my family size... if my name was Peter Quincy Smith and I had a wife and four kids. It could be my company's name... if I owned a company called Petrochemical Quality Systems... and if we had five satellite offices across the country. It could just be a name I gave my car, sort of like naming your dog Dog or naming a bridge Bob. It could just be a random assortment of letters and a number I like.

But it's not. I know what it is. If nobody else is interested, that's their loss.

So then I had this crazy idea. What if I challenged all my readers to go out and get a vanity plate with a PQS score on it? We could post all the photos on the Baseball HQ website and try to cover as many states as possible. If PQS-5 is already taken (like in Virginia), then you could get any of the other PQS scores. I know, it's not great to be driving around with a PQS-0, but who would really know what that means? Heck, get PQS-6 or PQS-14 if the others are taken. Why not?

Now, I know that I can't expect people to go out and spend their money for something as stupid as this if I didn't make some sort of sweet offer. So how about a free subscription or extension to Baseball HQ? At the time, I didn't know about other states, but vanity plates in Virginia cost just $20, so you would pay $20 to get a $99 product.

And I provided full instructions about how to join the insanity.

To be honest, I was ready to write the whole thing off as a big joke. But less than three weeks after I put out the call, John Richards sent me a photo of his shiny, new Arizona plate... with PQS-5 emblazened across. Four days later, Bryon Backenson dropped me a note that his New York motorcycle plate was on its way. Four days after that, Andy Smith asked if the deal was for real, and added his North Carolina plate to the mix.

I didn't think this would turn viral, in a terrestrial sort of way, but that's exactly what has happened. Over the past year, I've received photos of PQS plates from Maine to Hawaii. When PQS-5 was already taken in their state, contributors usually just stepped down to PQS-4. But we did get a PQS-6 in California, a PQS-1 in Ohio, and several more creative efforts. Michael L. Berney added his initials to his Pennsylvania plate; adding MLB kept the effort in character. Dr. Lewis Winters' California "PQS 5X21" is in honor of a pitcher who has 21 PQS-5 outings in one year. And John O'Reilly paid tribute to those great pitching performances in ancient Rome with his Virginia PQS-V plate.

In an oddity, Michiganers sent me a PQS-4 and a PQS-3, but no PQS-5. Obviously, Justin Verlander has kept them all for himself.

Some states have silly restrictions on what you can put on a plate. For instance, in Massachussets, the letters "I," "O," "Q," and "U" can only be used as part of a word that is clearly defined and correctly spelled. Arkansas prohibits numbers in their vanity plates because of fear there will be confusion with their standard plates. And some states have made this program cost-prohibitive; Minnesota charges $100 plus a $8.50 filing fee for personalized plates. I've offered to toss in a Forecaster to those in Twins territory, as well as Nats fans in the similarly-priced District of Columbia.

And it didn't stop at our BaseballHQ.com community either. Two bloggers even got wind of the program: The Coolest Viral Campaign You've Never Heard and Viral Sub-Culture: PQS Across America

It's gotten HUGE, I tell you. Like Justin Beiber's Youtube video.

Well, sort of.

And you can still take part. Here is what you need to do to participate in PQS Across America:

• Purchase the vanity plate "PQS-5" in your state (or country!). If that plate is taken, purchase "PQS-4" or any PQS score down to 0. If you want to purchase a plate with a higher PQS score, go nuts.
• Take a digital photograph of the plate and email the file to pqs@baseballhq.com. Make sure you identify yourself in the email and include your contact information.
• When we receive your file, we will enter a one-year subscription (or extension) to BaseballHQ.com within 72 hours of receipt.

By participating in this "PQS Across America" event, you are giving us permission to post the photo of your license plate on BaseballHQ.com, and possibly in next year's Baseball Forecaster.

If anyone asks what PQS-5 means, tell them that it's a system for evaluating pitching performance used at BaseballHQ.com. A PQS-5 is the best you can be and it netted you a free $99 subscription. If they look at you funny, tell them you didn't do this because it was geeky; you did it because it was profitable.

Check out your state below, and join us!

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