Home Keeping score Keeping score: Diamondbacks-Cubs 30 April 2010

Keeping score: Diamondbacks-Cubs 30 April 2010

by Matt Smith

keeping_score_128x128One thing that I failed to mention in my recent story about the Cubs-Diamondbacks game is that I was keeping score during the contest.

Last Friday’s game was the first time in the 2010 season where I sat with pencil and paper in hand and noted everything down.  I always enjoy keeping score as it adds something extra to the experience and makes you appreciate the nuances of the game that little bit more. 

However, I’m one of those sticklers who believes if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.  I only start to keep score of a game if I’m confident that I’ll be able to watch the whole contest and that it’s the main thing I’ll be paying attention to.  Up to this point, I’ve often been catching bits of games or watching/listening to them while doing other things as well. 

With no other plans and an overwhelming desire to just sit down and relax, Friday evening seemed the perfect time to assemble some snacks, dig out a scorecard and while away a few hours enjoying a ballgame.  A scan of my completed scorecard can be found here. 

I used the BGB Innings scorecard for no better reason than it being at the front of my folder of blanks when I went digging around for one.  It works with a standard ‘fan method’ of keeping score and that was fine for the ‘scoring’ mood I was in, but it’s not quite as detailed and precise as the IBAF style sheet that I was playing around with over the offseason. 

As always, that is particularly the case when it comes to charting fielding position changes.  The Cubs’ Marlon Byrd pinch-hit for the pitcher in the bottom of the seventh inning and then joined the game as a centre fielder in the top of the eighth.  Tyler Colvin, the original centre fielder, moved over to left and Alfonso Soriano was taken out of the game.  Soriano’s former batting position (number 6) became the pitcher’s batting position, although that slot wasn’t needed again as the Cubs didn’t come up to bat in the bottom of the ninth.  Charting fielding changes is always an inexact science on a standard scorecard, especially compared with the neat and effective IBAF style system which copes with it so well, but the gist of it is noted down well enough.

It was a fairly standard game from a scorer’s point of view.  The only play worth pointing out is Gerardo Parra’s at-bat in the fourth inning on the D-Backs’ batting page.  Parra hit the ball into right field where Kosuke Fukudome fielded it and fired the ball to home plate in an attempt to put out Mark Reynolds.  Reynolds got in safely and Parra was able to advance to second base on the throw.  I noted that down by drawing a continuous line from home to second, writing ‘1B’ to show Parra was only credited with a single and then putting ‘O9’ in brackets to stand for ‘occupied ball: right fielder’.

The completed scorecard shows how both starting pitchers coped well with the conditions in the first three frames, before Wells ran into some trouble in the fourth and Lopez found it in the sixth. 

If you have any queries about the scorecard, just pass them on via the comments box below.

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2 comments

Joe Gray May 10, 2010 - 5:33 pm

Great job as always on these posts. Scoresheets from MLB games are just so neat. Not like my one from the weekend, when the Pirates made 5 errors in the first inning alone. This is clearly what comes from starting a game at 10.58 on a Sunday!

You could even use “T92” instead of O9 to show that the player advanced on a throw from the right-fielder to home plate – giving you that much more detail.

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Matt Smith May 10, 2010 - 8:22 pm

Those Major Leaguers normally make it easy on us when it comes to keeping score. Shame the guys over here aren’t so considerate, especially on a Sunday morning!

T92 is definitely the way to go. To be honest, I went for O9 because I couldn’t remember another way of noting it down. Thanks as always for the tip

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