How To Score a Baseball Game With Pencil and Paper
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Photo by Go Cubs!
Scoring a baseball game with paper and pencil is a tradition that goes back to the early days of the game. Keeping score is a great way to get more involved as a fan. You’ll get really engaged in the game. Moreover, each scorecard is a story of each game that you go to. Scorecards make a great memento of all the baseball games you’ve attended. Unfortunately, with the rise of high tech scoreboards and cell phones that can give updates right in the palm of your hand, keeping score with a game card is becoming a lost art. Here’s how to do it.
Ready the card
Get your card. Most baseball programs come with scorecards. If you don’t want to drop $4 for a program, print your own from home from this handy website. Write each team’s batting line-up down the left hand side of the card. In addition to the players’ name, include their position number (see below) and jersey number.
Learn the code
There’s a shorthand that has developed to assist in scoring baseball games. You can develop your own style, but here’s the standard method:
Position numbers. Each position is assigned a number. These numbers will be used when you record fielding plays.
- Pitcher- 1
- Catcher- 2
- First Base- 3
- Second base- 4
- Third base- 5
- Shortstop- 6
- Left field- 7
- Center field- 8
- Right field- 9
- Designated hitter- DH
Batter shorthand. When a batter is up, keep track of whether he hit, got walked, or struck out with these basic abbreviations:
- Strikeout- K
- Looking strikeout (where the batter doesn’t swing)- backwards K
- Walked- BB (base on balls)
- Single- 1B
- Double- 2B
- Tripple- 3B
- Homerun- HR
- F- flyout
- DP- double play
Follow the game
With your card ready in one hand and a hot dog slathered with mustard in the other, you’re ready to score the game. Each player has a row of squares with baseball diamonds next to their name. We’ll use these squares to track the progress of each batter.
If a batter hits a single, write 1B outside the diamond and darken the line from home plate to first. If the runner on first advances to second, darken the line from first to second. And so on until the runner gets home. Here’s an example:
If the runner scores, fill in the diamond with your pencil.
If a batter strikes out, write a K in the middle of the diamond. If that batter was the first out, write a “1″ with a circle around it. Indicate subsequent outs in the similar fashion.
If the batter makes an out after hitting the ball, you want to record how the play happened. Going back to our Jeter example. Say Jeter hits a grounder to the pitcher and the pitcher fields it and throws it to first base, the out would be recorded by writing “1-3″ across the diamond. This indicates that the pitcher fielded the ball first and then threw it to first getting Jeter out.
Easy enough. How about double plays? Let’s say we have Jeter on first base after hitting a single. The scorecard will look like this:
Now, Giambi is up to bat and hits a grounder to the shortstop. The shortstop throws it to second, getting Jeter on the force out. The second baseman throws it to first, getting Giambi out. Here’s how we record it. First, we want to indicate Jeter got out at second on a grounder by Giambi. Do this by darkening the line from first to second only halfway. Write 25 next to that line indicating that it was Giambi that hit the ball that caused Jeter’s out. Jeter’s row will look like this:
On Giambi’s row, we’ll write “6-4-3″ across the diamond indicating the fielding sequence. Above that we write “DP” indicating that he caused a double play. Don’t forget to add a “2″ with a circle around it indicating that he was the second out. Giambi’s rowwill look like this:
If a batter flys out, write “F” followed by the fielder who caught the ball. So, if the centerfielder catches a fly ball, you would write “F8″ inside the diamond of the batter who hit the ball.
If you want to show a runner on base getting tagged out or forced out, draw a line half way to the base they were headed to as well as the fielding sequence of the out. For example, say Jeter was on first after hitting a single. Giambi hits a grounder to third. Third baseman fields and throws it to second getting the force out. This is what Jeter’s row would look like:
At the end of the game, you don’t want a card that looks like this. So pay attention.
Photo by Hysterical Bertha
Make it your own
These are just the basics to help get you started. If you would like more info and examples of scoring baseball games, check out Baseball Scorecard. This is a fantastic resource if you’re interested in keeping track of more advanced aspects of the games like Fielder’s Choice, RBIs, and steals.
After you get the basics down, start adding your onne style to keep track of scores. There isn’t a wrong or right way to do it. The trick is to find a system that will help you easily keep track of the progress of a game.
Here’s a good example of someone who has personalized their scorecard.
Photo by Spudart
Excellent post.
There’s probably going to be a debate about whether or not this is manly, or worthwhile of a post, or even if it is an Art of Manliness; but I’ll tell you what it entails. It entails intelligence, and intelligence on a sporting level at that, therefore being one of those manly intelligences.
Baseball, being one of the most manliest sports (throwing and hitting a ball, common), is balanced with intelligence (the upper tier of sports in terms of intelligence). Having knowledge of the Art Form of the Baseball Scorecard, which dates back to the very early and simple centuries and has real history to it, and is a time tested form of the personal sports experience, is definitely a skill worthwhile to have in the masculinity ammunition.
Realistically, this may be something hard to pick up and learn off the bat, but I do suggest that if there is a must-learn thing about this Art, it’s definitely the Lineup (Player Names & Order) & the “Code” (Position numbers and batter shorthand).
And that Personalized Scorecard? A Beautiful work of art.
I personally love baseball; my favourite sport, hands down and I never knew you could score baseball by paper! That’s awesome!
Whether it’s manly or not…well, who cares? Part of being a man is being strong enough to make your own decisions. This site is great for organizing one’s thoughts and learning new skills (like scoring baseball with paper), but it isn’t and shouldn’t be the decisive say on what is manly or not. Not every man is going to like baseball. Hell, in the country I live in, almost no one knows how to play baseball anyway. This is a blog on one person or a select amount of people’s view of manliness and I feel that one is free to agree, disagree, and/or ignore certain posts without having it be an assault on one’s own vision of manliness.
I think on the “jeterforceout1.jpg” example you’re missing the 1 with a circle around it to denote that this was the first out.
But overall, a GREAT article about another lost art.
Baseball is one of those sports that is both Athletic…but also Mathmatic….this is how you make math fun for boys.
A timeless pastime. There needs to be more people involved in the games rather than there for the social scene. Great post.
I swear you were reading my mind Brett! I was just hanging out on baseballscorecard.com this week thinking about how cool it would be to learn how to properly score a baseball game. I got to thinking about it after reading this great article on esquire.com about 75 Skills Every Man Should Master (http://www.esquire.com/features/essential-skills-0508) which mentions learning to properly score a baseball game with paper and pencil.
Keep up the good work! I love the site!
As a Reds fan, that personalized score card is probably the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.
I’m slowing getting up the nerve and knowledge to score a game. I’ll probably practice scoring at home with either a TV or radio broadcast.
Of course, when I go to baseball games, I’m usually the only one - male or female - for rows and rows (my season tickets are 5th row behind 1st base in Minute Maid park) scoring the game. So, I’m not sure it *has* to be a mainly manly art, but learning to score was definitely the thing that got me hooked on the game. I’m indebted to a couple of friends and my former husband who let me ask a million and one questions about the rules during my first hundred games or so.
Wonderful post…it has been a while since I have hand-scored a tally card at a baseball game. The last game I went to was at Wriggly Field with the Cubs and I didn’t even think about keeping track of the totals. When I was a kid, whenever I would go to a Detroit Tigers game I would do eveything by hand and I loved it…that also was when I was still huge into collecting baseball cards… but your post brings back a lot of memories as well as knowledge that I thought I had lost.
Look forward to reading more in the future as this is my first stop. I have added you to my blog roll and reader…
Thanks again!
Great post! I’ve recently started keeping score at games (the Nats, both the single-A Potomac Nationals and the home Washington Nationals) and doing so has helped me understand the game even more. To those considering doing it, I’d like to offer these two tips:
First, remember, for the most part, you’re just worried about the *batters* and not every little personnel change. Pitchers have their own little part of the scorecard; you worry about their totals when the game is over.
Second…stop thinking about it and just do it. My first scorecard is, I confess, a sloppy mess, but my third one was so tidy I noticed the guy sitting next to me looking at it, to see what had happened in previous at-bats. You can pick it up that quickly.
And I, too, recommend baseballscorecard.com. Not only do I use one of their scoresheets, so does a guy in the row in front of me.
@ all- Keeping score isn’t per se a manly art. This site is geared towards offering men helpful information (though we love our women readers!). So, if I try to write about stuff that I think men will find interesting and useful. I’m not trying to create a debate about “Is this manly or not?”
@ Dad of Divas- Yeah, scoring a baseball game by hand brings back a lot of memories for me, too. Some of my fondest memories as a kid was going to the minor league games in OKC, eating soft serve ice cream from a mini-batter’s helmet , and keeping score.
@ Victor- Great advice on “just doing it.” As you do it, you’ll start developing a system and you’ll notice your cards getting better and better.
Of course the great Phil Rizzuto would score the games he did color commentary for, sometimes scribbling “WW”. That, he explained was his code for “Wasn’t Watching”.
I scored the Brewers/Astro game yesterday at Miller Park. I haven’t done that since playing Strat-O-Matic, Pursue the Pennant and Statis Pro baseball board games!! It is a great way to stay involved and on top of the game.
base ball sucks like all american sports
I remember as a kid being fascinated by the instructions in the program on how to score when I’d go to games with my dad. I never learned though.
A few years ago a friend who wasn’t a baseball fan was invited to 3 games in 2 weeks (2 Cardinals, 1 MU Tigers). He decided that he should learn to score and turned to the internet. I learned from the websites he found.
Now it is an important part of what I do when I go to games. I even have a book that I can take with me to keep all of my games in one place.
Are the runs in the following inning earned or unearned?
1st batter singles
2nd batter hits into DP (2 outs)
3rd batter singles eventually scores when 5th batter reaches on error
4th batter walks eventually scores on 6th batters single
5th batter reaches on error scoring 3rd batter
6th batter singles scoring 4th batter
7th batter strikes out (3 outs)
Howard — both runs in said inning would be UNEARNED.
I am a 6th grade math teacher, and I plan to teach my kids to score a real baseball game. Hopefully I can get a few more interested fans, as well as teach a little “real life” math. I realize I am not the normal viewer for this type of site, but I certainly appreciate the basic instructions.