How to Use a Baseball Scorecard

Series Summary

Baseball scorekeeping is a shorthand method to record all of the details of a baseball game. In baseball, the official scorer will use this method, as will average fans. The scorecard produced by fans doesn't affect the official record keeping of baseball statistics, but is often done for pleasure or better enjoyment of the game. A scorekeeper tracks the result of every play of a game, although many fans find it unnecessary to record some of the smaller details. Every run, hit, out, steal, and pitch of a baseball game can be recorded, yet there is no definitive system for scoring a baseball game. However, the foundations of scorekeeping are fairly universal, and fairly simple. Fans often make modifications to scorekeeping systems to fit their own style.

In order to keep score in baseball, you must understand what notations are used on a scorecard. This video series will teach you how to keep track of every pitch, hit, out, and run through short hand notes. You will learn the numbers assigned to every position, how to record outs, and how to keep track of hits and baserunners. You will also learn why it is important to keep statistics in a baseball game, and how they can be used to calculate batting average, ERA, and RBIs. Baseball is a historic game, and true fans pride themselves on knowledge of all of the game's nuances. With these instructions, you'll be one step closer to learning how to keep track of all of baseball's little details.

Video Transcript

"In baseball we count everything. That's why a scorecard is so very, very important to the game. We keep track of not only what kind of runs you score in a game, but what kind of hits you get, how many balls were thrown, how many strikes were thrown. We count literally everything, so you want to always be able to fill out a scorecard. It's a very complicated thing to do. I'm going to show you how to do that. Let's take a look at what the scorecard is first. Right up here, you have the scores my inning. You put in the visiting team and the home team. The visiting on top and home team at the bottom. You'll fill out the scores at the end of each inning right here. All the way 1-9. Right here what you have is a place for your line up and your first through your ninth batters is what we filled in for the people who are starting the game. Any substitutions that are made later, will be here on the 10th through 16th spot. Let's say this is where you break down your innings. Inning 1 through inning 9. When batter number is up in the first inning, you're going to record what he did right here. I'll talk to you a little bit later on about how to exactly fill that out and what all the different symbols mean. You have batter number 1, who's up in the first inning. You'll fill out what he did right here. At the end, you tally up everything. How many bats, how many hits, how many doubles, triples, homeruns, bases on ball, how many runs they scored. Also, your strike outs, stolen base, sacrifice, RBIs, your put outs, your assists, and your errors. Literally, in baseball, we count everything."