A few years ago I got fed up with the scorebooks I could find and simply made one for myself in Excel. Every couple of years I print about 100 on some good card stock and keep 'em in a closeable clipboard and I'm ready to go.

They're asking a lot for a weak scorebook.

For those of you who keep score, how do you handle situations when a team scores like, 10 runs in an inning?

For those of you who keep score, how do you handle situations when a team scores like, 10 runs in an inning?

Base16.

Pitching To The Scorebook: Now you too can make the same mistakes the pros do!

Very good.

Now you too can make the same mistakes the pros do!

WW

For those of you who keep score, how do you handle situations when a team scores like, 10 runs in an inning?

Once the team bats around, continue the inning in the column for one of the extra innings and hope that the game doesn't somehow go into extra innings.

Kind of a nice design, really. I was looking the other day for very simple scoresheets online, and everything I saw had enough little boxes and sub-sub-sub-cells to record every tap of the bat on the plate (and be unreadable and unwritable at the same time).

#3, the old Project Scoresheet forms, though they too have lots of little boxes, are excellent in not giving every batter a box in every inning. That way, when a team does bat around, you just keep right on going to each batter's next plate appearance. The rest of the time, you save so much space that you never run out of boxes or have to cram two PAs in one box or over two innings' worth of room. You can still run out if the game goes 14 or 15 innings, sure, but that's rarer than batting around.

For those of you who keep score, how do you handle situations when a team scores like, 10 runs in an inning?

If it's the sixth, then replace the 7 with 6 and continue in that column. Do the same with all subsequent innings.

I think Bob Carpenter still sells his scorebooks, which are fairly easy to use.

I generally use the box as the bases, with home in the lower-left corner. If there is sufficient space, I mark balls with dots at the top of the the box, with strikes (and two-strike foul balls) on the bottom.

When I was at David Cone's perfect game, I couldn't do the balls and strikes because the boxes on the Yankee program were relatively small. Unfortunate, since Cone never went to a three-ball count on any batter, something I don't think ever happened in any other perfecto.

(BTW, that scoresheet illustrating this entry looks as if it came from Strat-O-Matic.)

I wish Eric Enders still made scorebooks, I loved those books (should've bought more than one when I had the chance).

I'm looking for a new scorebook; mine's too big & bulky. Any other recommendations?

I'm looking for a new scorebook; mine's too big & bulky. Any other recommendations?

As I mentioned above I made my own and while I carry a big thick clipboard around with me you can do something similar and custom size it. Even if it's just a matter of copying a scoresheet off the web somewhere you can do a lot.

If you have a smartphone there are scorekeeping apps that are surprisingly good. I prefer the pen and paper method but it's nice.

I made my own form a long time ago, and mostly used it for Little League games. It probably resembled the Project Scoresheet forms as much as anything, and was probably inspired by them. I had 5 columns per batter, and could handle a 6th time through the order by writing in the margins. In the top of each box I'd write a string of letters like BBCSFBFX (B=ball, C=called strike, S=swinging strike, F=foul, no play made, H=HPB, X=ball in play. I'd put subscripts in between those letter for stuff happening on the basepaths. (Lots of WP/PB). On the next line I'd write a short description of the X, like FF3, or gsing cf or ldoub lfl, where I hoped the abbreviations would still make sense when I went back and looked at them later. I had pre-printed R and BI in the bottom part of the box, and would circle those as appropriate.

I just printed them, hole punched them, and put them on a clipboard or in a ring binder. Biggest problem was the flimsiness of ordinary printer paper.

Unfortunate, since Cone never went to a three-ball count on any batter, something I don't think ever happened in any other perfecto.

I believe Len Barker never went to a three-ball count in his perfect game, as well.

I haven't kept play-by-play in years, but when I was really into it (in about 1961), I used the Peterson scorebook, which at least back then was the only one to include squares for balls and strikes, and with the diamond laid out in the background you could indicate exactly where the ball wound up. I'm sure that there are many others that are as good or better today, but in 1961 those were light years above the competition.

My scorecards (Project Scoresheet scoring system) are PA-based, not Inning Based -- no wasted spaces, there. The annoyance comes in when an inning ends on a caught stealing.

I used to score every game when I was a teenager. I barely remember the old system now, I haven't used it since 2007.

I use the Bob Carpenter scorebooks, for what it's worth. It served me well over the years. As for the batting around thing, there's nothing I hate more. Screws up the whole look of things. Although I'm not a big fan of the double-switch either.

These are pretty cool scorebooks.

Only 5 pitcher slots?

I guess these are the newly designed ones for when LaRussa retired.

Mine were nice back in my university days...
had about 10 tiny boxes in the bottom of each box to indicate pitch (ball, taken strike, swinging strike) in order, then a diamond above it in the box where I'd indicate how the hitter moved around the bases and where they ended (fairly standard), and each sheet had blanks for innings so I could easily handle extra innings. No summary on the side for total hits/etc but at the bottom a summary of the game info (date/time/final score/etc.).

Later on when the team asked for more pitch info I switched to a full sheet per hitter with a large diamond so I could track where the ball was hit each time (a 1/2/3/4 to indicate plate appearance), space to record about 10 PA iirc, plus space to put in pitch type and location for every pitch. A handful of the hitters loved it and it helped our pitchers figure out where their tendencies were (ie: on 2 strikes do they always go outside, or with a certain pitch, etc.). This was in the late 80's-very early 90's, pre-world wide web. Inputting the data was a royal pain, but boy were the stat sheets long (legal sized) to contain all the extra stats I made up (swing % to indicate % of time they swung and missed for example).

At the university level it was interesting to see how the most effective pitchers were the ones who _didn't_ throw strikes all the time but could when needed. Trick was to be close enough to get batters to swing or to con umpires into calling it.

These are pretty cool scorebooks.

Thanks for linking that site. It was linked here once before, but I'd forgotten the URL. Depending on the price, I'd be interested in the spiral bound 100 game scorebook they're about to release.

Among my quirks (as long as we're on the topic) are to use $ for single and lower-case d for double. S looked too much like 5, and D too much like O, not that one uses O either.

I am one of two people I have ever seen keeping score on paper at a Rangers game. The other is Barbara Bush. I have seen people use various tablet apps which are extremely cool: you can drag and drop players into the lineup from a roster, click on them for stats, and what not.

I must say, so I and all of us can feel superior :) that keeping score keeps your head in a game and makes you much more interested in what's going on that following the usual stadium experience. People look at me like I'm some kind of bizarro supernerd, but it's worth it. One game last year, a guy asked me, "are you the manager of the Rangers?" I said "Huh?" or something. He said "'Cause you've got that clipboard."

One game last year, a guy asked me, "are you the manager of the Rangers?" I said "Huh?" or something. He said "'Cause you've got that clipboard."

Depending on where I'm sitting, I get asked if I'm a scout a lot when I have the scoreboard.

The girls who kept score for my high school team used the Peterson scoresheet. I had to explain scoring to them a lot, but their scorebook was better than the pros.

I've used the Project Scoresheet method since the late 1980s. Easy to read and follow.

Never really understood the appeal.

When I visited Japan, I kept score at all the games, which was a challenge since the scoreboards don't have the players names written in Roman letters. But if you prepare ahead of time, you can get by.

Japanese fans rarely keep score. They all thought I was an MLB scout. Especially at a game at the Seibu Dome when Kazuo Matsui was playing.

The girls who kept score for my high school team used the Peterson scoresheet. I had to explain scoring to them a lot, but their scorebook was better than the pros.

Unable to tell is this is snark.

I am one of two people I have ever seen keeping score on paper at a Rangers game.

Really? what a difference from Busch, basically every person over 50 scores at the stadium(at least it seems that way) and dozens of all age groups in pretty much every section. I always buy the stadium scorecard(which usually sells out before the game starts) and paperclip the ticket to the scorecard. Someday I'll have to convince myself to get a better scorecard, but I like the collectability of the stadium scorecard.

BBWAA: Official BBWAA scorebooks are now available to the public

Little known fact: Despite the confusion surrounding the Hall of Fame ballots, BBWAA members are permitted to write in player names on their Official BBWAA scorebooks.

I use "1B" "2B" etc. When 10 runs get scored, I just keep rolling in the next column, but I do not default to crossing out the inning headers and skipping the rest of that column. I draw a line to note the end of the inning (as I do on all inning endings - the diagonal between batters). Then I pick up the next inning there.

One thing that is very useful is using a 4 color pen (or at least two pens). So pitching changes get marked between hitters with a red squiggly line. Somewhere on this site I have posted examples of my scoresheets.

When I go to the ballpark, I like to get the stadium scorecard, but many stadiums didn't have "scorecard only", and I hate scoring in the program (and I hate buying the program). I also hate when the stadium doesn't have the courtesy to have golf pencils.

When I score at home (yes, I score at home), I use my homemade Excel spreadsheet so the whole thing goes on one sheet.

We should upload to google docs so we can share with each other (I will start later today).

Also, because I am a lunatic, I have used the work binder to bind my seasonal set of scoresheets.

#31) Yeah, that's the way to do it. Carry the long inning over into the next column then, when it ends, continue the new inning in the same, original column. It could carry over too, but it won't take long for the columns to get back to normal - and you rarely have to worry about keeping score in the AB/H/RBI columns...

I am one of two people I have ever seen keeping score on paper at a Rangers game.

Well, the program vendors at the ballpark still sell standalone scorecards. I buy them and presumably others do as well. Scoring is not widespread in Arlington but does occur here and there.

I'm sorry, Vance. Wave your scoresheet around when I come into view, I'm the guy in the UTA ballcap :)

I do like those Ranger scoresheets, BTW - stiff paper and cheap enough if you forego the "program" full of ads ...

http://www.reisnerscorekeeping.com/

You're welcome.