Scoring Baseball

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 3:15 PM PDT Comment 21 comments

Okay, so it's the ASB and as a little something different and having kept meaning to for a variety of things I thought I'd actually post a diary (woo!).

Some may have noted my incessant references to being a newbie to the game itself, let alone the Mariners or even this blog and this week after 14 months as a bona fide Baseball fan I finally got around to scoring a game myself. It wasn't particularly authentic as it was from the comfort of my own home whilst watching on MLB.tv but it's a start.

It's a very different way of taking the game in but pretty enjoyable and I'm already noticing after only doing it twice a few subtle differences in the way I appreciate play as it goes through gametime.

Anyway, I'm sure there are some veteran scorers amongst you all who are pretty experienced and wise in this art who may be able to provide a few tips? Any obvious pitfalls to watch out for?

Here is my second effort, taken from this weekend.
http://www.mtedwards.co.uk/baseball/det_bos_070708.pdf

I ripped the basic scorecard from www.baseballscorecard.com and a few tips from "The New Ballgame" (excellent book, by the way). I would appreciate anything that I might be missing that would be useful to add or suggested alternate ways of handling/noting certain situations. I have since adapted the template to look a little prettier but it's still essentially the same.

Some of the basic rules I tried to stick to:

record outs inside the diamond

record reaching base safely in bottom right

record the general direction of any hits in top right

ball/strike/foul sequence recorded on left side, top to bottom

progress on bases marked with solid lines

breaks on base progression marked with a dot

advancement on bases due to bb, hbp, balk, errors etc duly credited

CS/putouts on runners marked with a half-base line that is squared off

new pitcher marked with a horizontal line after last batter faced

new batter marked with a vertical line after last at-bat

new inning marked with diagonal line in bottom right corner of last batter faced, parallel to 1st baseline

I'm interested on any thoughts on the following, too:

Should the introduction of a PR be marked on the diamond/base progression anywhere?

Can you attribute progression on the bases to particular incidents, or is it usually open to the interpretation of the reader as to which subsequent hit generated which progression?

Cheers

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Errrr

Do whatever you will be able to understand later and don't worry about any "official" scoring methods.

My brother and I invented a scoring system when I was 7 and he was 5, and I still use about half of it today. I don't actually do most of the stuff you've mentioned, and I write down lots of crazy stuff and extra details of the game below, and I use uniform numbers to mark who advanced what runners, and so on.

I only mark a PR coming on if it's not going to be obvious where it happened (ie, the place the batter reached from their at-bat). And I write all sorts of bizarre things to note what caused progression, ie "E4T", "7-2", etc.

by Deanna on Jul 10, 2007 3:21 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

There's no one standard

except that it has to make sense to you. That said, I find the more info I try to cram into the diamonds the less useful it is - when I score, I use a combination of the scorecard and notes that I take (my scorecard has a notes section that's the right 1/3 of the score page).

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Jul 10, 2007 3:25 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Cool, ta

don't worry about any "official" scoring methods
Haha, noted! I was quite hacked off with some of the errors attributed over the two games I've done so far and put a few down as hits myself instead. Official scorers are pretty harsh bastards, aren't they?

I use uniform numbers to mark who advanced what runners

This is a pretty good idea, yeah. I think my next challenge is going to be finding a pen(cil) with a suitably fine tip!

P3 W1 L2 (.333)

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 3:25 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

One day...

One day I'll learn how to frigging reply properly.

P3 W1 L2 (.333)

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 3:27 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think the "official" method

is to note when runners advanced by the position in the order of the batter who advanced him. As an example, Ichiro gets on with a single, and moves to second on a Vidro fielder's choice. I would put a circled "2" near the baseline to second.

Except that I don't care that much about it anyway. Keeping track of balls and strikes is hard enough. And I print up my own scorecards, typically. I do, however, like to keep track of what batters do in an at bat where the train blows it's horn. No good reason, though.

by tworsandtwols on Jul 10, 2007 3:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

haha.

when I first got my Big 5 Scorebooks and was astounded by all the space, I used to write down the times when the trains went off, just randomly.

by Deanna on Jul 10, 2007 3:42 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Advancing

I have no idea of the official method, but I was taught to record advancing in a similar method. In the case above, I would write A2 (advanced by 2 spot) near the base they were advanced to. If he advanced on a WP or PB I would write that in the same spot.

by rdave on Jul 10, 2007 10:44 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't think I'd ever seen the 'official'

rules for scoring.

The half baseline squared off thing for CS is nice; I've been writing it on top of the baseline.

One thing: I don't know about other official scorers, but in Seattle, it's next to impossible for a Mariner to be charged with an error. I've never once thought, "that was harsh" on an error call. I've thought, "under what possible definition of 'hit' does that play qualify?" hundreds of times. I'm sort of encouraged that there are still scorers who call errors errors.

by marc w on Jul 10, 2007 4:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Errors vs Hits

A lot of it might depend upon the relative expectancy of your infielders, I'd guess.

There's a penalty for having arms 1" longer or legs a little fast than the next guy. Whilst you make a bunch of plays, you also have a chance at a bunch the next guy didn't and subsequently 'error' where the next guy didn't even have a hope in hell.

P3 W1 L2 (.333)

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 4:11 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree.

It pisses me off when I see some almost make a great play and get an error (happens to Beltre occasionally), when some chump on another team never would have even reached the ball.

This place has a sign hangin' over the urinal that says, "Don't eat the big white mint".

by Thingray on Jul 10, 2007 4:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, part of it is that the only way errors are

consistently charged is when a bad throw results in an extra base. If you have to take one step in either direction, and you have a ball bounce off a glove, or go through somebody, it's a hit. Make a diving stop on a ball, then throw it away, it's an error - but it's often a hit plus an error.

That's not even getting into the fact that no error is charged on missed fly balls unless a fielder actually touches it. There needs to be a team error for balls that fall in between two fielders, each of whom thinks it's the other's responsibility.

by marc w on Jul 10, 2007 4:44 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'll add to the chorus

that don't worry about official scoring, just do what works for you. I don't do a lot of that stuff, just what will be important to me later.

A lot of times if I am with other people, I forgo balls and strikes, because you really have to watch every pitch, and I become anti-social.

I generally fill the center with whatever they do at the plate, be it an out or a hit, and use the outer diamond area for anything I need to note that happened on the basepaths.

But do your own thing.

by jtopps on Jul 10, 2007 3:42 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

mmm

I don't even do balls-strikes when I'm by myself because I don't have the attention span for it.

Something else I forgot to mention is that I write down the location and distance of all home runs. And since I color in the middle of the diamond when a run is scored, I don't put anything there if a batter actually gets on base. Only if they're out do I put anything there. I note single/double/triple with a number of lines in the lower right corner, for example, and if it's a fielder's choice or what have you, it just gets crammed in there, "FC 6-4" or whatever.

by Deanna on Jul 10, 2007 3:44 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I guess I write smaller than you ;)

and I do a sort of grey-in when guys score, so I can still read what they did at-bat. Maybe I'll try your way next time out.

by jtopps on Jul 10, 2007 4:08 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thinking about it

Come the final reckoning I'm keen to adopt a system that I can use to quickly identify hits, outs and runs. Possible RBIs too.

I don't currently use the inside of the diamond for anything other than outs, so filling it is a neat way of describing a run and that takes care of the first two. How I get a quick tot-up of hits I'm not sure, perhaps other incidents need to appear somewhere that isn't bottom right... hmmm.

Do any of you guys track RBIs in each at-bat? I've tried to tally it in the final column as I go along but I think that's prone to mistakes and not very obvious at-a-glance which AB that RBI should be credited to.

P3 W1 L2 (.333)

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 4:16 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah, I track per at-bat

my scoresheet has a little RBI's box in each frame.

by Deanna on Jul 10, 2007 4:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah, I stopped doing balls and strikes

when minor league baseball.com started giving you pitch counts and balls/strikes. It was sort of fun to do pitch types, but that's just because I went to most games by myself.

by marc w on Jul 10, 2007 3:55 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Balls and strikes

Yeah, I think it might be something I relax on later in time but for an underling like me it's still quite exciting to observe, and I don't expect to be able to count pitches without marking them (just yet).

What I found interesting when doing that was how the AB results differ following different pitch counts and pitch sequences. Obviously within the context of a single game that's pretty meaningless but it helps a little to appreciate at least some of the articles on THT for example.

Meanwhile, Willy Mo struck out looking three times in that game on just ten pitches. FACT!

P3 W1 L2 (.333)

by MarkE on Jul 10, 2007 4:05 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

My dad has his own way of keeping records...

He keeps them on a pad, does every hitter, every pitcher, every pitch. Not only does he have every game he has been to, but also does the ones at home that my brother pitches in.

Every hitter is record, by name and number at first then just number. Pitches are recorded as B = Ball, T = Taken strike, S = Swinging strike, F = Foul ball, * = ball in play. For my brother, there are minute notations that show what type of pitch it is (almost looks like a chemical equation).

Out beside that area is noted what happens for the play plus what gets them from base to base or out. Pitches are then totalled for the inning. Each inning for scoring is kept up at the top of the first page, just like a scoreboard, along with date, time of first pitch and official game number (order of the actual game on schedule not game played). Out beside those things, is kept in order of position number played, the number of the person playing that posistion.

It is actually pretty cool when you know what it means. When someone outside looks at it, they are like "wow".

by ppl4life on Jul 10, 2007 4:31 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Progression

I ALWAYS write on the runners box how they progressed. Say Ichiro hits a single. I move him to 1st and make a mark that he's stopped, which I see you do. Then he gets to 3rd on a base hit. I move him to 3rd, making a stop mark at 3rd. Somewhere between there, probably between 1st and 2nd, I will put the position number of whoever moved him over, in this case, say Ibanez, so I'll put 7.

Glad to know someone else is as into scoring as I am. I score every game I see live.

by phil333 on Jul 10, 2007 7:25 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

not a big fan

of filling out score cards, I'd much rather just watch the game. When I do do it, I invariably miss something and get frustrated because my score card will never be perfect. When I do fill them out and I miss something, I have the "DS" code for "did something"

by Trenchtown2 on Jul 10, 2007 11:53 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs