My 2012 scorebook, plus assorted pencils, pens & highlighters
We’ve still got eight days before Dillon Gee takes the ball and the New York Mets open their Grapefruit League schedule, though two of my least favorite big league teams will open the exhibition schedule with a pair of televised games next weekend.
The New York Mets' numerical roster page at the beginning of this year's scorebook
So I spent a few minutes yesterday getting my 2012 scorebook prepared.
I’m not sure why I developed the habit, but I will always try to keep a scorecard when I watch a baseball game. (If I looked around enough, I could probably find some Gene Elston scorebooks from the early 1990s…)
I now use a scorecard of my own design [PDF format], influenced by one I found that had been discarded by a local sportswriter at a New Jersey Cardinals game many years ago.
Years ago, scorecards represented the best way to preserve the details of a baseball game that you saw. Now, that function has largely lost importance. MLB.com has more detailed information about recent games than any paper scorecard could hope to capture. Retrosheet.org has play-by-play information for most games played over the past century-plus. Data for minor league and independent league games is harder (and in many cases impossible) to find, but over the past couple of years the leagues are making strides to make play-by-play data available to internet-connected fans.
Now, the memory-keeping function of scorecards is really only important on a personal level. Has your favorite team won every game you’ve been to this season? Did they just break a long losing streak of the games you’ve attended? Did your favorite player do something cool? Your scorecard is a place to keep track so you can look back later and have something to jog your memory.
A pair of scorecards waiting to capture memories of the 2012 baseball season
That’s why my scorecard has a large area for game notes, so I can keep track of any interesting (to me, anyway) little details. But there’s another reason to keep score – it helps keep me focused on the game I’m watching. And that’s why I’ll score the games, regardless of whether I’m watching on TV or at the ballpark. (You may have noticed I even have a section for spring training games – though I usually get bored with keeping score – and watching - exhibition games after the novelty of the first couple wears off.)
Do any of you keep score cards when you go to baseball games? Do you remember how you got started?
Neat score book there!
I did go to ten Yankees games in 1996- unfortunately I didn’t have a ticket plan so no post season. The Yankees won every time.
I saw the home opener in the snow and Gooden’s no hitter.
The Yankees had a Friday to Monday series that August v. Seattle. There was a rivalry with them- see 1995 playoffs. The Mariners had a gimmick where they said they were going to do the worlds largest macerana dance. So they go and do it. The yankees claimed later they were going to have the worlds largest macerana dance. Instead of YMCA being played they had the grounds crew do the macerana during the Friday to Sunday games. The Yankees lost each game.
On Monday- the game I attended they went back to YMCA- the yankees won.
I’ve never heard the macerana played at a Yankee game since- PRICELESS!
It’s taken more than a decade, but I don’t mind the Macarena any more. The baseball game staple that earns my ire now is “The Cha-Cha Slide.”
I always keep score when I go to games, but I use a spiral-bound softball scorebook which I buy from a local sporting goods store. I also do it because it keeps my head in the game, but it’s also fun to go back to minor league and college games of the past and find out who I might’ve seen before I knew I was seeing them. I keep my game notes in the margins… “First Major League at-bat”, “So hot, the crowd booed the game-time temperature”, “Geena Davis threw out the first pitch”, stuff like that.
In the past when I went to Mets games, I often became the unofficial statistician for the people around me. People would ask me things like “Hey, how many strikeouts does Cone have?” I haven’t been to a home Mets game in something like 15 years, do you get that kind of thing?
At Mets games, it’s more likely someone will ask for help to fill in a batter or two that they missed while going to the bathroom or getting food. (There were a bunch of people that kept score in the section I had seats in with my mini-plan last year.)
At Newark or Trenton games, I get stats questions more often because the scoreboard doesn’t really provide much information beyond who’s at-bat and what they’ve done for the day.
Paul,
i like your scorecard! Like the above comment, I use a softball scorebook.It has lots of extra slots for subs and they usually have a 10th inning also.
Want to test your skills, try keeping score for a nine inning spring training game with 1000 substutions and many players with the same number!
It is not as easy as you think. Especially if your team is on the road!
Will be starting next Friday (Georgetown vs Nationals) as they are 20 min from my house. I hear the Mets are doing a intra-squad game of young guys vs starters on possibly Fri or sat!
Thank you.
I’ve attempted to keep score at a couple of Newark Bears exhibition games, though it didn’t really turn out well either time. In one, the players were just wearing t-shirts, so fans were mostly at the mercy of the PA announcer to figure out who was playing at any given time. The other was not being played under normal rules – around the middle of the game, the managers started inserting extra batters into the order.
Have fun at the game Friday!
What do you do with the playing field in the top right section of page one?
The baseball diamond diagram is on both sides of my scorecard; I use it to keep track of the players who are out in the field on defense. (Here’s one of my scorecards from last year – the extra-inning game the Mets won when Justin Turner got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.)
Paul;
I admire your dedication and organization in regards to your scorekeeping. I often find myself playing catch-up during the first three innings because I spend my first hour trying to get autographs (at MiLB and Indy games) and then I often leave early because of the time and/or distance factors (don’t forget wet or cold weather) with work the next day, etc. I started keeping score recently after reading the “Joy of Keeping Score”. As suspected, I found it a good way of keeping my head in the game, especially with all the distractions and my low attention span. My biggest fear when keeping score is when the 10th batter comes to the plate, what a mess! I do like the data that you stands out on one’s scorecard, like the Newark Bears pitchers inability to throw first pitch strikes, the 2006 and 2008 staff comes to mind. I plan on being more diligent in keeping score in the upcoming season. Thanks for inspiration!
Thank you, Jeff – I hope that we run into each other at the ballpark more often this year.
The 10th batter of an an inning has always been something I dread too. The current version of my scorecard just has boxes, rather than columns pre-marked for each inning, so I can start another one when I need too. (It still doesn’t make for a neat scorecard, though.)
I score every game I go to. I also created my own scorecard because I was never happy with the store-bought versions. I wanted room for extra innings, more than two batters per slot, and lots of relief pitchers. (Scoring a September Red Sox-Yankees game was crazy without all the extra room!) I had the cards copied and bound into my own book at Staples.
I got started as a youngster just because it was a neat thing to be able to do at a game. Later, I met someone who had season tickets and scored every game. I realized how great it must have been to be able to flip through all those scorecards and see all the history, so I started being more faithful about it. I just found out last year that my great-grandfather used to score every Red Sox game from the radio. So, I love the idea of following a family tradition. I flip through the old cards every once in a while to remember the games and some of the players I had forgotten about.
I can imagine how much fun it must be to score a September Red Sox – Yankees game… probably right up there with September games managed by Tony LaRussa.
My dad said that he used to keep score at games when he was younger, but I have a hard time imagining it. Still it’s nice to maintain the tradition.
I began keeping score in April 1987, when I realized that I just had to keep some kind of souvenir of the game (without getting gouged at the concession stand). So, I adapted a giveaway Budweiser scorecard from my college’s pub, and made multiple bound copies at my work-study job.
I added a few blank pages to the front of this homemade scorebook, and use those for autographs of players I don’t have cards/photos for, when I get things signed at the railing or dugout roof.
I start a new book every ten years or so, and I’m on my third book. I can’t believe I’ve been scoring 25 years—a little over half of my life. My plan is that when I’m rocking on the porch in my old age, I can look through my old scorebooks, read my personal commentary on each game, and think back on how I spent so much time at Major and Minor League ballyards, scoring games and getting autographs.
It seems also to be a fading tradition among fans watching games. Some kids see me and have no idea what I’m doing; some adults, my age (late 40s) or older, get snide and say something with mock encouragement along the lines of, “Hey, I loved doing that when I was a little kid.”
I frequently get kids that either have no clue what I’m doing or ask if I’m a scout. I don’t really recall any comments from adults, unless they’re asking how many strikeouts the pitcher has or for help filling in something they missed on their own scorecard.
I have never kept score but I used to buy about 20 notebooks before the season and record daily stats of my favorite players.
Nice scorecard, I’ve made my own for the last couple of years, but nothing as nice as this. Thats hard to admit with me being a Braves fan, haha. I might have to use this. The only question I have is the columns at the bottom for inning totals. I Can’t really follow yours.
The white boxes are for the runs, hits, errors and left on base figures for that inning; the grey ones are for the running totals. I posted my completed scorecard for the Seattle/Oakland season opener in Japan last week, if you want to see a scored game.