Many fans enjoy keeping track of baseball action with easy abbreviations written on simple grids. Serious scorekeeping, however, is more complicated than just jotting down runs, outs, and the final score. Official scorekeeping requires a thorough knowledge of a large body of rules--many of which are confusing, and all of which must be followed carefully to ensure that the scorekeeper's data are valid. With confidence and enthusiasm, Andres Wirkmaa leads the reader through the daunting maze of rules that govern official scorekeeping. Chapters explain and clarify the official scorer's duties, responsibilities and authority; the official scorer's reports; and all the game-to-game details such as player listings, substitute batters and runners, out-of-turn batters, called and forfeited games, runs batted in, base hits, stolen bases, sacrifices, putouts, assists, double and triple plays, errors (and instances when errors are not charged), wild pitches and passed balls, bases on balls, strikeouts, earned runs, winning and losing pitchers, and saves. Also covered are statistics, percentage records, minimum standards for individual championships, and consecutive hitting and playing streaks.

With the aim of providing anyone interested in baseball scorekeeping everything he or she needs to perform the task, this book contains a thorough and comprehensive manual on keeping a scorecard, together with a detailed analysis of each of the numerous, and often complex, official rules governing scorekeeping in baseball (many of which were revised or modified in 2007), as well as scorekeeping issues outside of MLB's rulebook. Myriad examples are given (many drawn from significant and well-known major league games throughout the history of baseball as well as a number of examples drawn from popular culture) of how baseball's scorekeeping rules are applied and dealt with in both routine situations as well as the most difficult and convoluted scenarios. Revised and updated to reflect recent changes to the MLB rulebook, this book is very readable and perfectly accessible to a broad audience.

Baseball is America's pastime, and baseball fans are the ones keeping it that way. Not just the buy-me-some-peanuts-and-Cracker-Jack fans, but the true fanatics: the ones with worn-out gloves, rally caps, jerseys, alternate jerseys, and enough broadcast calls of their team's greatest moments committed to heart to fill a box CD collection. Some are outwardly fanatical, earning their way onto team compilation videos with wild hair, face paint, signs, and dancing. Others are fanatical in the way they observe, closely eyeing every pitch, pickoff, and outfielder's jump with a fine-tuned finesse honed over thousands of innings.These fanatics with finesse are baseball's aficionados. And this is the Aficionado's Scorebook for Baseball.Capture every detail of every game, from the weather and time of the first pitch to the count your team's slugging third baseman had when he roped a hanging curveball down the left field line for a walk-off double (though he would've rounded the bases all the way to the next state if he could). Let the raised-ink cover show some age as you track your son's high school team all the way to the state final. Bring your scorebook home from the ballpark and leave it on the coffee table to show exactly where you were for that complete game shutout in Game 6, or exactly where you've been on your numerous road trip stops to check off another ballpark.Fanatics with finesse don't just cheer today, they relish in the greatness of baseball for a lifetime. Score your baseball memories like a true aficionado today.

Baseball Hacks isn't your typical baseball book--it's a book about how to watch, research, and understand baseball. It's an instruction manual for the free baseball databases. It's a cookbook for baseball research. Every part of this book is designed to teach baseball fans how to do something. In short, it's a how-to book--one that will increase your enjoyment and knowledge of the game. So much of the way baseball is played today hinges upon interpreting statistical data. Players are acquired based on their performance in statistical categories that ownership deems most important. Managers make in-game decisions based not on instincts, but on probability - how a particular batter might fare against left-handedpitching, for instance. The goal of this unique book is to show fans all the baseball-related stuff that they can do for free (or close to free). Just as open source projects have made great software freely available, collaborative projects such as Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank have made great data freely available. You can use these data sources to research your favorite players, win your fantasy league, or appreciate the game of baseball even more than you do now. Baseball Hacks shows how easy it is to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. The book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. For the uninitiated baseball fan, author Joseph Adler walks readers through the core statistical categories for hitters (batting average, on-base percentage, etc.), pitchers (earned run average, strikeout-to-walk ratio, etc.), and fielders (putouts, errors, etc.). He then extrapolates upon these numbers to examine more advanced data groups like career averages, team stats, season-by-season comparisons, and more. Whether you're a mathematician, scientist, or season-ticket holder to your favorite team, Baseball Hacks is sure to have something for you. Advance praise for Baseball Hacks: "Baseball Hacks is the best book ever written for understanding and practicing baseball analytics. A must-read for baseball professionals and enthusiasts alike." -- Ari Kaplan, database consultant to the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, and Baltimore Orioles "The game was born in the 19th century, but the passion for its analysis continues to grow into the 21st. In Baseball Hacks, Joe Adler not only demonstrates thatthe latest data-mining technologies have useful application to the study of baseball statistics, he also teaches the reader how to do the analysis himself, arming the dedicated baseball fan with tools to take his understanding of the game to a higher level." -- Mark E. Johnson, Ph.D., Founder, SportMetrika, Inc. and Baseball Analyst for the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals

Baseball scorekeeping is the practice of recording the details of a baseball game as it unfolds. Professional baseball leagues hire official scorers to keep an official record of each game (from which a box score can be generated), but many fans keep score as well for their own enjoyment. Scorekeeping is usually done on a printed scorecard and, while official scorers must adhere precisely to one of the few different scorekeeping notations, most fans exercise some amount of creativity and adopt their own symbols and styles.

A historical novel from Newbery medalist Linda Sue Parks about life, faith, and America's favorite pastime: baseball. Both Maggie Fortini and her brother, Joey-Mick, were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Unlike Joey-Mick, Maggie doesn’t play baseball—but at almost ten years old, she is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players’ statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Unfortunately, Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it’s Jim who teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Not only can she revisit every play of every inning, but by keeping score she feels she’s more than just a fan: she’s helping her team. Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments—being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and year after year of dashed hopes. But Maggie goes on trying to help the Dodgers, and when she finds out that Jim needs help, too, she’s determined to provide it. Against a background of major league baseball and the Korean War on the home front, Maggie looks for, and finds, a way to make a difference. Even those readers who think they don’t care about baseball will be drawn into the world of the true and ardent fan. Linda Sue Park’s captivating story will, of course, delight those who are already keeping score. This historical novel is from Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park, whose beloved middle grade books include A Single Shard and A Long Walk to Water.

Smarty Marty's Got Game is an inspirational baseball story that touches all ages and crosses multiple generations. Best-selling author Amy Gutierrez, the San Francisco Giants in-game reporter for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, adds to her heart-warming story with this easy and instructional big league scorebook.