Future Shock: Opening ... (04/06)
24 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links
| |
|
|
April 9, 2012 Wezen-BallA Peek at My ScorecardOn Thursday, during our all-day, Opening Day chat marathon, I made a casual observation about Prince Fielder bobbling a ball at first-base and tossing it to the pitcher for the out rather than running to the bag himself: Larry Granillo: That was interesting from Prince. Bobbled the ball on the grounder to him and decided to lob it to Verlander instead of taking it himself. I've written "UA3" in my scorebook so many times from Prince doing the opposite... That brief scorekeeping note set off a bit of a discussion: Kevin Goldstein: UA3? I propose a completely meaningless keeping score argument with Larry. It's clearly 3U in the books. The conversation continued on a bit from there, but that was the gist of it. Clearly, my standard notation of "UA-3" for an unassisted groundout to the first-baseman is anything but standard. And that's quite alright with me. As I said in the chat, my scorekeeping method was developed sometime around age eight from tips taught to me by my older brother. Some habits you can't break and, really, I don't want to. I like the way I keep score - it makes sense to me and it describes a large percentage of the game. In fact, I like it so much that I thought it might be fun to take a look at a random game from my scorebook. I was at the Cardinals/Brewers game at Miller Park on Sunday (where the Brewers lost 9-3) and, as always, I kept score. I present to you now the scorecard that I kept while at this game (along with some comments). It's not the prettiest nor the cleanest and my handwriting is definitely not the best, but the card is representative of the way I keep score and does manage to include a few non-standard plays.
Many of my markings are familiar. The back-to-back groundouts to short in the top of the first for the Cardinals, for example, are marked as "6-3". The many strikeouts on either team (seriously, the Brewers struck out 13 times and the Cards 12) are scored with the standard "K" and "(backward K)". The numbers next to the "K's" count how many strikeouts in the game up to that point, though this is something that I don't always do. When a player reaches base, like Matt Holliday in the top of the first or Tyler Greene in the top of the third, his method of reaching is indicated (I prefer using "2B" or "HR" rather than some of the more cryptic methods I've seen). When Ryan Braun was picked off by Lance Lynn in the bottom of the first, I marked it "PO 1-3" and ended the inning there. The differences are more numerous. Not only is there the "UA-3" marking rather than Kevin's favored "3U" (Tony Plush's groundout in the bottom of the seventh), I also mark my flyouts differently. A flyout to the outfield, like Braun's two 400-foot outs in the fourth and seventh innings, is marked as "O-8" or "O-7" instead of "F-8" or "F-7". I can't explain why that was the descriptor I was taught, but it makes sense to me. After all, the flyout is the most generic out there is in baseball. Besides, foul-outs deserve the "F-3" or "F-7" tag much more than a towering pop-up to center (see Alex Gonzalez's third-inning at-bat). Lineouts are marked as, say, "LO-6", but I'm not always consistent with that. I tend to mark them more when the line-drives are more obvious. An important aspect of the scorecard to me is tracking what happens to a runner once he reaches base. Look at the Cardinals' half of the fifth inning. Matt Holliday leads off with a walk (shown with "BB" on the card), followed by a Carlos Beltran single. Holliday advances to second on the single, so I draw his movement on the diamond and mark it was "3", indicating that Beltran (uniform #3) moved him that far. In the next at-bat, David Freese laces another single through Milwaukee's porous infield. Holliday comes around to score and Beltran moves to second. Both moves are drawn on the diamonds, with Holliday's advancement to home (not third) marked with Freese's #23 and with Beltran's move to second marked the same. This tells me that the Freese single moved Holliday two bases. Freese is also given a single "+" to indicate his one RBI (multiple RBIs are marked with multiple plusses). The only other notable part of my scorecard is the pinch-hit and relief pitcher markings. I don't know how others keep track of these, but I do it by very explicitly marking "PH #7" or "RP #41" next to the spot in the batting order the change takes place. If multiple pinch-hitters or relief pitchers are used in that spot, it can get a bit ugly. I also like to mark a new defensive player's spot on the scorecard with the slightly rounded lines you see in the Cardinals' eighth inning in the number-7 and number-9 batting spots. These marked the double-switch with Yadier Molina and the pitcher's spot. It helps to easily distinguish which at-bats belong to which batter in that lineup spot. I think that about covers my idiosyncratic scorekeeping methods. They may not make sense to you and they may seem unnecessary, ugly, or just plain stupid, but you will never convince me to change them. It's too personal of a thing to go meddling with. I don't think I'm alone here.
|
Resident Fantasy Genius: Don't Hoard Your Fr...
And I thought I was the only one that tracked runner movement by the uniform number of the hitter!
Nick
It's one of the most important things to me - and it's so easy to do. I hate looking at a card that shows someone getting to first and then scoring without any marks as to how he got there. I know you can figure it out from the following batters, but it's not always clear.
I can elaborate later if you'd like (no time now), but I keep track of this by scoring each lineup spot in a different color (and a 10th color for PHs). Thus when the 3rd batter (light blue) is up, and something changes the status of the leadoff (purple), the leadoff box has some light blue mixed in with the original purple.
It's a little awkward having to switch pens every batter, but it becomes really easy to see what happened, and makes for one of the more unusual scoresheets you'll ever see. If you want I'll try to get a picture to you at some point.
I do something similar to what you do, but with the number of for the hitter's position, rather than his uniform number. So if the SS moved the runner to second, I'd have a 6 next to that line segment.