#17---NYA @ BOS, 9/1/2001

New York held a seven game lead on Boston as play opened on September 1, but the Red Sox hoped that Pedro Martinez could pitch them to a much-needed win. Pedro was excellent, going six shutout innings while scattering two hits and fanning six. Orlando Hernandez yielded a leadoff homer to Trot Nixon, but pitched through the next eight innings without further damage. Meanwhile, Chuck Knoblauch’s single off the green monster tied the game off Ugueth Urbina in the eighth, and Bernie Wiliams’ leadoff homer in the ninth increased the New York edge to eight in the standings.

Scoring wise, not much had changed, but the sheet did get a minor cosmetic upgrade with the lineup section being boxed in.

#16---TEX @ CLE, 4/16/2000

My scoresheet got some much-needed cosmetic work for 2000, with solid lines to separate the scoreboxes. This early season game between two defending division champions matched up Chuck Finley and Esteban Loaiza.

Finley went the distance on the hill for Cleveland, making 125 pitches and allowing a single run in the third inning. Loaiza looked to be even better though, holding the Indians to just one hit through the first seven innings, while striking out ten, including five in succession heading into the eighth. After getting David Justice to ground out, he allowed a hit to Travis Fryman and was pulled after 110 pitches for 1999 relief sensation Jeff Zimmerman. He worked out of the inning, leaving John Wetteland a save opportunity in the ninth.

Wetteland was in his final major league season, and it was one of his worst with a 120 ERA+. After retiring Roberto Alomar, Manny Ramirez hit his payoff pitch out of the park in center field to tie the game. Jim Thome did likewise on a 2-2 pitch, and the Indians had a dramatic 2-1 victory.

#15---NYA @ ATL, 10/23/1999 (World Series Game 1)

I intend to go through at least one scoresheet from each year until I get to the present day. Then I will just start picking out sheets from my collection. So, here is the example sheet for 1999.

Any World Series game is historically relevant, but as far as they go, this was not special. The first game of the Yankees second consecutive sweep, it matched Orlando Hernandez against Greg Maddux. Chipper Jones went deep for the Braves in the fourth to give them the lead, and through seven Maddux made that one run hold up, allowing just three hits and two walks while fanning five on just 85 pitches. It all fell apart in the eighth with a single, walk, error, and single plating a run. Paul O’Neill greeted John Rocker with a single, and the Yankees would add another run. Atlanta brought the tying run to the plate with one out in the ninth, but Rivera struck out Brian Jordan and got Brian Hunter to foul out for the save.

You can see that I had now started recording the final score of the game--a long overdue piece of information. I also kept inning-by-inning pitch counts for the starters, with their total pitches recorded when pulled (for example, Maddux made 11 pitches in the eighth for a total of 96).

I have no clue why was I compelled to write down who sung the national anthem, but it was some woman named Monica, apparently.

#14---CHN @ STL, 9/8/1998

This game is included here for both its historical significance and the fact that it illustrates how my scoring system had progressed by the end of the 1998 season.

Base hits now have both a location code (done by field position numbers, 7 for left, 8 for center, and 9 for right) and a trajectory code (F for flyball, L for line drive, G for groundball, B for bunt, W for a ball off the wall). So “-7G” is a groundball single to left field. Additionally, events that occur during at bats are now much more clearly timed. For example, in the top of the fourth inning, Gary Gaetti advanced to second on a balk. The balk is marked with “7aa”, meaning that it occurred during the at bat of the #7 hitter. The first a is for after, and the second a indicates that it was the first pitch. “2e” would indicate something that occurred on the fifth pitch to the #2 hitter. “4bfp” would be before the first pitch to the #4 hitter. “6lp” would be on the last pitch to the #6 hitter (since the pitch that concludes the at bat does not get a letter).

While the final score of the game is still not recorded, each inning has a line summary. For example, the St. Louis sixth is marked “5-3-1-0”, meaning 5 runs on 3 hits, 1 walk, no one left. You can see that I had a blind spot in my definition of left on base, as seen in the line score for the Chicago third, which shows a runner left despite the fact that the only baserunner, Mark Grace, was retired on Sammy Sosa’s double play ball. For some reason, I considered DPs to be a runner left on. One of course could define a category like “baserunners who reached but did not score” and that would be appropriate, but that is not what I was going for--I wanted LOB in the traditional definition.

The Cubs lost the game 6-3, and while they were in the hunt for a playoff spot (and would eventually beat San Francisco in a one-game wildcard playoff), the historical significance was Mark McGwire’s 62nd home run, hit to left in the 4th inning, and leading to a bunch of excessive notes jotted down by me on the top of the page. Tony LaRussa was batting his pitcher eighth, as he had for a decent part of the season, so that is a curiosity. Also of interest is the major league debut of JD Drew, who pinch hit for Kent Mercker in the sixth, striking out looking. He stayed in the game to play left, then flew to center in the seventh.