Baseball Scorekeeping: A Practical Guide to the Rules

by Andres Wirkmaa

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.

Genres: Baseball, Reference, Sports

278 pages, Paperback

First published May 6, 2003

Reviews

[ZT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quality: 4.5 stars
Enjoyment: 3.5 stars

Very thorough and accessible. A somewhat grueling. Happy to have learned a bunch and also happy to be done.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

People casually interested in baseball scorekeeping read Dickson's The Joy of Keeping Score. Those who are serious about keeping score read this. Wirkmaa analyzes each of the official rules. He does a very a very good job at digging deeper. As I recall, there were still some areas that were not covered quite as I thought they should. Even so, this is for the serious scorer. No other work approaches this on the subject.

[Jim]

This is more of a reference book for baseball scoring situations as related to the rules of baseball (particularly section 10 of the Official Rules of Baseball). It would be boring to about 99.9% of the worlds population.

[John Cress · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically what it says it is, a reference book on the rules of baseball score keeping. This is cool to have if one wants to look up rare plays and how to score in addition to the basics. The book also gives in game examples to help with explanations of rules