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Scoring the Old Fashioned Way ~ Paper and Pencil!

Posted on March 1, 2012 | 1 comment

Book Review

“HOW TO SCORE BASEBALL, Advanced Edition” By Robert Bulka

This is a comprehensive, well-written book that could easily have been titled “Everything you always wanted to know about scoring a baseball game, but were afraid to ask.” It’s been years since I’ve scored a game but I wasn’t the least bit daunted in reading the book. I mean how many things could have changed in the last few decades? A hit’s a hit, a ball’s a ball and a run’s a run. Well to start with a hit isn’t necessarily a hit as Robert carefully points out in his score keeping basics.

Standard Baseball Scorecard

But this isn’t your ordinary book. This is a book full of instruction and explanation that helps the reader understand “why” each entry must be carefully entered into a specific area on the scorecard. It’s a how-to book that’s actually fun as I felt like a school kid learning something for the first time. And actually I was, as I realized the method I’d learned to score back in the old days was the most basic of basics. This is the real thing, as it gets into not only runs, hits and errors, but takes you into recording unusual situations such as the four strike-out inning, catcher’s interference and the double switch and much more.

“Scorekeeper photo courtesy of Google Images”

I’m an accountant by trade so one of the more interesting aspects of the scorekeeping was “Proving a Box Score”, or how to be sure your book is in balance so to speak. But my favorite was the list of formulas the author included for calculating statistics. If you’ve struggled with Sabermetrics this is a great primer for learning how the various percentages are calculated.

The book is available in Kindle and PDF format, but I’d really love to be able to read it in a regular book format also. The information available in this great little book is such a great resource I’d have the pages folded and yellow highlighting and post-its on every other page.

In case you’re not aware, you can download a Kindle book even if you don’t have a Kindle. It can be downloaded to any PC, laptop and/or Kindle.

I’m aware there are a lot of electronic scoring systems out there, but to be honest I don’t see how you could become a very good scorer without understanding how and why you’re entering information in a specific place. This will teach you to do that.

I really enjoyed this book and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s learning to score for the first time or for someone who just needs a refresher course. Today my new score book arrived in the mail and I can hardly wait to settle in and begin practicing my new-found skills with Bulka’s handy little e-book by my side.

“How to Score Baseball” is available for purchase through Amazon.com.