I've always felt a bit intimidated by the people you see at the ballpark with scorebooks. They're the ones who can tell you, at a glance, how many pitches have been thrown in the current at-bat (just because the count is 3-2 doesn't mean there have been five pitches thrown, you know). And you just know they can recite the infield fly rule, too.
The fundamentals of baseball scorekeeping aren't that intricate, although it certainly helps if you start with a basic understanding of the rules of the game. You can find good explanations online (this one is my favorite), but basically scorekeeping boils down to three things:
- Memorizing the universal (more or less) shorthand codes that describe what happens on the field;
- Picking a system for recording those events;
- Practice until it becomes second nature.
So how hard is it?
If you're me, pretty damned hard -- at the least on my first try.
After reading up on the topic, I printed out some blank scorecards and biked over to The Joe to catch a Riverdogs game. But the lines were ridiculously long and slow for a Monday, and by the time I'd collected my food and stopped by the board outside the beer garden to write down the batting orders the National Anthem was already winding down. I didn't get to my usual seat in Section 206 until the first at-bat was already underway.
I caught up pretty quickly thanks to the scoreboard, penciling in the opposing batters from the West Virginia Power as they stepped to the plate. But my bumbling was only beginning.
In the second inning I figured out something annoying: The lineup that was displayed on the board by the beer garden had been the previous night's lineup against the Lexington Legends. Not only that, but in my haste I'd transcribed that outdated lineup improperly and incompletely (I only had eight players, not nine). And the cherry on my cupcake of confusion? When a Riverdog got ejected by an over-zealous umpire in the bottom of the first for arguing balls and strikes, I mishandled the resulting lineup change.
By the middle of the 4th inning my first experiment was a smudged nightmare of erasures and quasi-illegible scribble. On the bright side, the fact that I'd been keeping score had convinced multiple fans in 206 that I must know something about baseball, and people kept asking me questions about rules and statistics.
Conclusion? If you want to be the King of the Ballpark, keep score. Even if you do it extremely poorly, others will assign you godlike status. Which is nice.
TAKE TWO
My next experiment took place in the comfort of my own home -- just me, the MLB Extra Innings Free Preview, and a late game between the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Randy Johnson got the win and unfortunate Cubs starter Rich Harden got stuck with the loss, even though he threw 10 strikeouts in seven innings and only gave up two walks, one hit and one run. I know about this statistical injustice because someone else kept score of the whole game and posted the results.
But the two innings I scored at home went much more smoothly than they had in the ballpark. I mean, who's got time to watch an entire ballgame uninterrupted? A ringing phone eventually my evening of statistical geekery, but I counted my second attempt a limited success.
Conclusion? Keeping score does not accrue any special cosmic karma points for the team of your choice, not even when they've got Rich Harden on the mound, for crying out loud.
WHY BOTHER?
Baseball wasn't my sport growing up and I put most of my attention toward following the sports that I played. But as I've mellowed with age I've found myself gravitating more toward the National Pastime. Earlier this year it occurred to me that to really get more out of watching baseball I should put a bit more effort into learning about the game.
Another fan at The Joe once told me that the No. 1 reason to keep score in this era of instant statistical analysis is that it "keeps your head in the game." I'd have to disagree. For me, the best reason is what you'll learn about the game and its traditions simply by trying your hand at scoring. For instance: Which of these events counts as an official at-bat?
- Strikeout
- Walk
- Hit
- Ground or fly out
- Hit by pitch
- Sacrifice bunt or fly
Answer? Only items 1, 3 and 4 count as an at-bat for the purposes of determining batting averages, etc. And keeping track of the pitch count really gives you a better sense of the game-within-a-game that occurs between pitchers and hitters. Anyway, whatever. You'll find your own surprises, like the difference between a "forward K" and a "backward K." Who knew?
The more I learn about baseball, the more I enjoy watching it. And if a know-nothing like me can pick this stuff up, anybody can.
Want more? The best book I've found on the topic -- by far -- is Zack Hample's fantastic 2007 tome Watching Baseball Smarter. Get yourself a copy and stash it by your remote control.
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