Keeping score at a baseball game is traditional for fans, sportswriters and team officials. It is an easy way to keep track of what happened in a ball game that you attended or watched on television. While greater detailed scoring is the norm as the game has evolved, fans and sportswriters can easily keep track of the game by knowing its nomenclature.
Take Down The Lineups
Take down the lineups from both teams. This involves noting the player's name, his uniform number and position number, and putting it in the appropriate spot in the lineup. If you are keeping score in a game involved with a designated hitter, put the pitcher's name in the pitcher's box beneath the lineup grid that you use to keep track of the events of the game.
Keeping Score
Each position on the field is assigned a number. When a batter puts a ball in play and a fielder makes a play, those position numbers are used to indicate what happened. The positions and their numbers are: pitcher-1; catcher-2; first baseman-3; second baseman-4; third baseman-5; shortstop-6; left field-7; center field-8; right field-9. If the first batter hits a ground ball to shortstop and he throws the batter out at first, you would write down "6-3" in the scoring grid space corresponding to the batter. If the second batter hits a fly ball out to center, you would write down "8" in that batter's scoring grid space. If the third batter hits a triple, you would draw lines that go from home to first, first to second and second to third with three horizontal lines in the scoring grid. The three horizontal lines indicate a triple. If the next batter strikes out to end the inning, you would write down the letter "K" to indicate a strikeout. If the batter took a called third strike, you would write down a backwards letter K.
Cumulative Stats
In addition to keeping track of the game as it progresses, you have to keep a record of the stats accumulated by the team as a whole and each individual batter. When the game is over, look over each batter's plate appearances and record how he did in that game. If the first batter went to the plate five times and struck out twice, walked once and had two singles, scoring one run and driving in two, his final stats would be four at bats, one run scored, two hits and two runs batted in. The walk is a plate appearance but is not counted as an at bat. You keep track of the pitcher's stats the same way, adding up the number of innings pitched, hits allowed, earned runs allowed and strikeouts. These numbers help a manager or coach prepare a lineup for the next game and help sports reporters and fans know just what happened in the baseball game.
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