Scorekeeping 101

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

So, I’ll admit it: this is a misstep right at the start. Keeping track of the league's stats does not fall into my happy zone whatsoever! Although, that is in large part due to a lot of the junk that you guys out there are responsible for. So, there is that, at least. Don’t get me wrong, having all the stats to look over, assess your performance, and compare yourself to your league rivals is awesome and provides hours, sometimes days, and even lost weeks of fun. It’s just that our scoresheets are set up in a way that makes keeping score so simple, yet you guys still find a few absolutely befuddling ways to make a mess of it; forcing us to insert a bit of guesswork into the finals numbers, which is obviously not optimal. Having accurate and properly recorded stats is every bit as important as your play on the field, since the stats will go down in history as what you really did on the field… whether or not it is what you really did. So, consider this article your academic requirement before being allowed on a WSEM field of play, as I am going to lay out the proper way of filling out these scoresheets to ensure that all of the stats get done correctly, so we will have a proper history of the season. First, though, a little catharsis before getting into it: some of the comically all too common mistakes, or just asinine things people screw up or overlook.

The number-one most frustrating thing people do, or rather do not do is keep track of pitchers entering and exiting the game. If you do not let us know who is pitching and when, we sure as hell cannot represent your pitchers properly in the stats. In the past I have seen games where three pitchers were used, but when I look at the scoresheet later to work on the stats only one pitcher is written down. So, am I supposed to give him all the credit, or do I have to CSI through the at-bats to try and figure out when the switches were made? More commonly, people are nice enough to write down all the pitchers’ names, yet they still forget to put down the point at which he took the mound! So, this still leaves determining that important detail up to complete guesswork, and frustration. Even though our past version of the scoresheet was already simple with “put name here and inning here,” we’ve made a modification that should simplify the direction of what you are supposed to write down even more. I will highlight that later in the detailed teaching seminar section.

The second most frustrating, all too common, and ridiculous thing people do is actually a combination of two oversights. The first of which is not writing the final score on the sheet. Now, on its face that does not seem too difficult, since you should just be able to look through the innings and locate all the runs pretty easily, right? Wrong. Far too often people will be in a hurry, thinking about the game or other things, and while marking the hit will forget to draw the diamond to track a runner’s progress on the base path or shade it in when the runner scores. One game in the June 2010 tournament really sticks out because of this. Team A won the game and moved on in the playoffs and Team B went home, but in the official stats Team B’s pitcher was awarded a win and Team A’s a loss; all because A’s runs in the 4th inning were not marked. We realized the mistake and fixed it quickly, but for about a week Team B had a phantom win on their record! Now c’mon we are playing a kids game, the least we can do is draw and color in some diamonds; we are not even asking you to stay in the lines! Just like with the simplified and more apparent direction given to the pitchers section, we have added a “Final Score” box and made adjustments to the at-bat entry columns on the sheet to make it even more obvious what each square is to be used for. Details on what to do with both of those are coming in just a minute, as we move on to the learning part.

Here is the scoresheet for 2011. Bask in it, bathe with it, paper your walls with it, draw little “I *heart* WB” doodles in the columns of a copy you carry with you. Pay attention, there will be a quiz: 28 of them to be exact. Use one scoresheet for a game: your lineup on one side, and your opponent's on the reverse.

When you take your first look at the “revamped to be even easier for 2011” scoresheet the first thing you will probably notice is that it has a listing for twelve players, and you will say to yourself, “don’t teams only have four to six players on their roster?” Yes, but it is set up this way, so that if you have four players you can triple up the listing, and if you have five or six, then you can double up. Please, take advantage of the ability, as their will be many innings where you bat through your order and this allows you to keep an inning in one column and for the sheets to be read much more cleanly later on. So, that is simple enough right? Fill in the extra spaces with your batting order as many times as you can.

Slide back up the page for minute to something I am sure you overlooked or shrugged off as unimportant. “Date” and “Game #” may seem arbitrary in freely set scheduling, but they will allow us to keep track of winning and losing streaks, as well as properly keep track of how events of the season play out. So, write down the date on each sheet with month and date next to "Date" [i.e. 4/30, 6/11, etc.], and next to “Game #” indicate which game in sequence is being played against that team on that day [i.e. 1, 2…]. Next to those spaces there are two blanks separated by “vs.” Write your team’s name in the first space before “vs.” and the name of the opposing team in the space following. This is incredibly basic, I know, but you would be surprised how often this kind of stuff has been completely left out in the past.

Next, one of the most critical parts, slightly altered from last year: recording plate appearances. Under each inning notice there are two columns: the one on the left has lots of acronyms, and the one on the right is blank. For each plate appearance circle or mark the result of the plate appearance (K, HR, BB, etc.) in the left column. If the batter is out, do nothing with the right column. If the batter reaches base, begin drawing a diamond to track their progress around the basepaths in the right column; continue to draw their diamond as the inning advances. If they end up forced or tagged out, then stop their diamond’s progress at that point: you may choose to keep track of outs by marking a “1,” “2,” or “3” if you choose at this point, but it is not required. If the baserunner scores, remember to complete the diamond in their box and shade it in to make it easy to locate runs scored. When an inning ends draw a thick line under the last out to make it obvious when you come back up to bat next inning where to pick up in your lineup. So, there are a couple steps here, but all are pretty obvious, right? And you know they are important to get right, right? I know a game can get fast and hectic, but please, make sure to get this information written down; stats are a huge part of tracking the league, and if they are not handled properly, then we lose the validity of that. Also, notice we give you two extra innings, if you end up in a game that goes past the seventh inning, then move on to a second sheet; keep extras on hand. Just remember to include the sheet with those final innings with the first sheet of the game when you turn them in.

Simulated inning: Delano singles. McDonald out at first, Delano advances to second. Snow doubles,
scoring Delano. Bobby Hoppe walks. Chad Hoppe flies out. BJ Hoppe grounds out. Inning over.

Now, drop down to the lower left corner of the page to what is historically the most frequently screwed up part of scoring: pitchers. [I almost want to restate that sentence: Now, drop down to your knees and say your prayers if you can’t get this part right… but I'll just take breath…] There are six slots for pitchers in a game, and if you are using more than that, then you are probably not doing something right. At the start of the game, write in your team’s starting pitcher in the “1)” slot on your sheet; we know he is the starter, but just to get you in the habit of doing so write “1” in the “Inning Entered” box. When a new pitcher enters WRITE IN THEIR NAME, AND the point in the game at which they entered: i.e. they take the mound in the 4th inning with one out; write down “3 1/3.” Also, try to mark their entry on the opponent’s PA grid (reverse side of the sheet) with a quick comment (just their name for instance) in case they enter while a team is going through a string of batters with only one out. If the new pitcher comes in to start an inning, then write “0” in front of the “/3” just to keep in the habit.

Chad Hoppe starts the game. McDonald enters with 1 out in the 5th inning.

Finally, move your eyes a half-inch to the right: “Final Score.” You would be amazed how many scoresheets have been turned in without a final score written down. You would really expect at least one team to want those numbers to be known and reported, would you not? So, this year we are giving you this nice, centrally located box to hopefully remind you that you should write down the final score from now on. What we ask you to do here is incredibly simple: write the road team and their final score in the top row where it says “road,” and the home team with their final score in the bottom row where it says “home.”

Okay, so, you think you can handle that? Congratulations! You have now successfully kept score at a third grade level!

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Brandon Corbett
Flying Squirrels, 17, P
Statistician Assassin