Keeping Score

Anyone who says that baseball is a slow, boring game has never kept score. All of the stats that are out there are extrapolated from the score book. There are many different levels of keeping score, ranging from basic tally marks to spray charts, pitch counts, and more. When you keep score at a baseball game, you begin to grasp its complexity and its depth. The game may even seem to move a little faster. As you try to record everything that happens on a sacrifice fly, you might wish that the game was even slower.

I've kept plenty of score books in my day. Some guys, the ones that were too cool to be even mildly intelligent, hardly ever took a turn, claiming they didn't know how to keep the book. In high school and college, the score book would be looked over after the games and data entered into programs that calculate batting averages, on-base percentages, strike-out ratios, earned run averages, and much, much more.

If you'd like to learn how to keep score, I'll do my best to teach you the basics. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Here is a pretty good scorecard that I found online to get you started.

The first thing that you need to know is how each defensive position is numbered: 1=pitcher, 2=catcher, 3=first base, 4=second base, 5=third base, 6=shortstop, 7=left field, 8=center field, 9=right field. When I first learned this, it could get a little confusing. It would seem more intuitive for first base to be 1, second base to be 2, and so on. But, everything starts with the pitcher and catcher, so they are 1 and 2. If it helps, you may want to draw a small diagram of the field and place the correct position numbers in their respective places for future reference.

Knowing how to number the defensive positions allows you to record outs. And, since each team will always make 27 outs in a nine-inning game, most of your score keeping will be recording defensive plays. For example, if the lead-off hitter taps a ground-ball to the third baseman, who fields the ball and throws to first base for the out, you would find the lead-off hitters spot on the scorecard and write 5-3. 5-3 simply means that the third baseman threw the ball to the first baseman for the out. If it was the shortstop the play would have been a 6-3. A ground-ball out to second base is 4-3.

A double play ball that starts with a ground ball to the shortstop is recorded as 6-4-3 (shortstop to second, and on to first for the double play). However, the 6-4-3 is only used in the batter's location on the scorecard. To record the out at second base, you would find the runner who is on first base on your card, and write 6-4, because that is how the out was made on him. Fly ball outs are recorded as F8, F9, F7, F6, depending on who catches the ball. "F" obviously stand for fly, or fly-out. Whether you record the out with a hyphen (F-8) or not (F8) is a matter of personal style and preference. So, recording outs is basically just a matter of knowing how the out was made and coding it on your scorecard. Oh, and a strikeout is a "K" (a backwards-K if they strikeout looking).

Hits are a little more intuitive that outs on your scorecard: 1B=single, 2B=double, 3B=triple, HR=homerun. Walks didn't make much sense to me at first, but if you think of them as "base on balls," you'll be fine -- BB=walk. HP is the code for being hit by a pitch, and FC is used when a runner reaches base on a fielder's choice*.

*A fielder's choice, for anyone who doesn't know, is when a batter hits a ball which is fielded, usually by an infielder, and that player chooses to make an out at another base, rather than go for the out at first base to retire the batter. For example, with men on first and second base, and a ground ball hit to the right of the shortstop, he may choose to go with his momentum and record the force out at third base, while the batter reaches first base safely. Since the batter only reached base because the shortstop made an out elsewhere, he is not awarded a hit, and the play is recorded as an FC for the batter, which counts against his batting average just as if he would have been thrown out at first base.

The other part to remember as the offensive team puts runners on base is to trace their paths. When you look at a scorecard, you will see that there are many boxes that correspond with the lineup, which runs top to bottom, and the inning, which stretches across the top. Within those boxes is a diamond of some sort. Different scorecards may use various styling, but they will all have a diamond which represents the four bases on the infield. So, when a player hits a single, you would first record somewhere within that box a "1B" (some scorecards have offensive codes already in the box and in that case all you need to do is circle the 1B), and then, you would darken the line between home and first base on the diamond. If he steals second base, you would darken the line from first to second (and usually write SB (stolen base) above that line). If he then scores on another hit, you would darken the rest of the diamond, and then fill it in (just like the SATs) to show that he scored a run.

There is so much involved in keeping score, and so many situations may not even come up every game. The only way to really get a handle on keeping score is just to do it. If you're unsure about something, you can always ask me and I'll let you know. Just remember that you don't need to use every box and every space on the card if you don't want to. You can total the hits and runs in an inning at the bottom of your card, or not. You can total a player's offensive statistics off to the right after the game, or not. What makes keeping score fun is that it keeps you immersed in the game, so anyway you want to do it is just fine. Here's a completed scorecard I found that might help illustrate some of what I was talking about.