Baseball Scorecards July 10, 2006
I have recently started scoring at my games on paper. I tried last year to use PDA scoring software and dropped a nice chunk of change on it, but I just didn’t feel it.
At first, I read about our own TV announcer Bob Carpenter’s side job selling his own scorebooks. It is really hard to see what they look like on his website, so I plunked down cash for two of the fan books. Unfortunately, they are very free-form and I definitely do not have a free-form personality. They are useless for me. I will gladly bring them along to RFK at a future game if anyone wants them–never been used, one still in plastic. Cost me $25 each–yours for the asking (free as in beer).
I was already a fan of Christopher Swingley’s scoring tutorial...it is detailed and fun to read. He produced a number of versions of his own scorecards, made available under a Creative Commons license. I don’t necessarily like his approach for listing base hits or walks (circling preprinted markers down the right of each at-bat) but I have adapted. I burned the duplex-grey version with pitcher stats to CD, walked over to Kinkos and had them print 100 back-to-back copies, wire bound with a blank white sheet laminated for both back and front covers. Cost me around $25 and it is really sweet. Next time, I will probably back up to 25 or 40 copies, since I think the book will be pretty worn by 100 games, but otherwise it was a great decision.
- Posted in : Uncategorized
- Author : Jol
Comments»
Oh too funny! I’ve been doing the scorecard-go-round game myself (and posted about it as well). I like the PDA scoring, but I find it’s too hard to mark errors on the fly without losing some of the next action (or completely screwing it up). Luckily they had a trial and I didn’t plunk any money down on it. Plus, since I didn’t subscribe to the MLBStats portion, I had to hand enter all the rosters ahead of time and if I forgot on the PC, entering into the Palm was kind of a pain.
I also use Swingley’s as my favorite scorecard. I found a perl script for scoring it in a text file and then generating the scorecard (in Swingley’s format) electronically. Again, too prone to technical glitches if you mistype something it doesn’t like (and then won’t generate anything). Therefore, I’ve been printing off the dark grey ones and using them meself manually. I’m also not a freeform kinda person. I did check out Bob Carpenter’s and also didn’t like them (had that discussion in comments), so I don’t have high expectations that his Nats-geared scorebook will be up my alley.
Jol,
Thanks for the kind words on my scoring tutorial and scoresheet. How would you handle at-bat results if you could design your own scorecard?
Cheers,
Chris
Chris,
I’m not sure if this is what he was thinking, but I’d rather free-hand write the at-bat results. I am used to just writing 1B, 2B, etc. That would remove the enumerated list from the right side and allow the diamond to be a little bit bigger. Truthfully, it’s a minor gripe, and as he said, you get used to it pretty quickly.
-Eric
Yes, Eric, that is what I mean. Just writing it in the diamond is what I was used to. Now, instead of circling, I just mark through the result. Also, for BB, IBB or HBP, I still write it in or above the diamond, mainly because putting the I next to BB for intential walks made it hard to see it when tallying.
MissChatter, if you like Hot Asian Guys, we might be twins (based upon your scorekeeping experiences)
Eric, Jol,
What do you think of the card at the link below? The scorecards are generated using a program, so it’s really easy to tweak a couple lines and produce a different variant like this one (without the plays along the right side, and with a larger diamond and slightly larger outfield). If that works better, let me know and I’ll make a set (grey, black, cyan, etc.) and put those on my site too. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to send them my way.
Duplex, grey, “clean” version with pitcher stats:
http://nika.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~cswingle/baseball/scorecards/mpost_scorecard2_pitchers_clean.pdf
Cheers,
Chris
Chris,
That’s perfect for me. Totally awesome. Thanks for making the change!
-Eric
Eric,
Cool. I’ll build up a set and add them to my web pages.
Chris
Chris,
I don’t know if you’re still looking at these comments, but I have a suggestion I’ve been meaning to make. I couldn’t find an email address on your website. If I could spend the time downloading mpost, I’d try to figure it out myself, but you can probably whip it out quickly. Would it be possible to move the diamond and the abbreviations down to the bottom of the box, and move the balls/strikes to the top with the balls first and the strikes under? That way they’re in the order called/shown on the screen. Despite knowing which are which, when I hear the count, I tend to accidentally fill in the wrong set of boxes.
Thanks!!!
Jol, no hot Asian guys for me! And I’m a sucker and bought the ScorePAD software. Sigh. It’s convenient to use during day games when I’m at work.