#91---CIN @ CLE, 3/24/2002

There's nothing like the scoresheet from a run-of-the-mill exhibition game to cheer one up on a dark, snowy winter day. I certainly hope the Reds were playing a split squad, because that lineup is putrid.

#90---NYA @ NYN, 6/17/2001

This Yankees/Mets game serves as a good illustration for why I prefer scoresheets that don't allocate space to statistical summaries--I rarely ever fill them in.

If you overlook 3-4-5, this Met lineup is pretty ghastly. Benny Agbayani was a fun player, but Desi Relaford, Rey Ordonez...Joe McEwing in *right field*? Not good, but they exploded for six in the bottom of the eighth to turn a 7-2 deficit into an 8-7 win in a rematch of the previous season's World Series.

#89---CLE @ BAL, 4/5/2000

This was the second game of the season for the Indians and the Orioles in 2000. Charlie Manuel, in his first year as skipper, was tossed for arguing balls and strikes in the third inning. His frustration would have been understandable as this game was a preview of things to come with the 2000 Tribe. A five-run second, including two bases loaded walks, was not enough. Chuck Finley gave up four runs in five innings in his Cleveland debut, and Steve Reed gave up a three-run homer to Charles Johnson in relief. Johnson homered again off Scott Kamienicki in the eighth, and it was so bad that Bobby Witt came into get the last out. Things would only get worse as the season progressed.

#88---Home Run Derby, 7/13/1999

I only scored two home run derbies, honest. I posted the 1998 one a couple years ago, and figured I'd get the embarrassment out of the way now by posting the second, so that my heirs who continue this blog won't be sitting around in 2089 posting home run derby scoresheets.

#87---COL @ ATL, 4/26/1998

This game between the Rockies and Braves was pretty exciting, with Colorado scoring four in the first and two in the third in a rare stinker by Greg Maddux. Atlanta got back into it with five in the fourth, including a triple by Chipper Jones and a homer by Andruw Jones. But Jerry DiPoto (rare to see a future GM on a scoresheet) was able to record the save in the ninth, the Rockies' 7-6 lead secured with a big day by Vinny Castilla (single, double, 2 homers, steal, 3 runs, 5 RBI).

#86---CLE @ OAK, 4/3/1997

This game was kept on my horrible Excel scoresheet, examples of which I've posted before. Oakland won 5-4 on Geronimo Berroa's eight-inning homer despite Kevin Mitchell's three-run shot for Cleveland in the second. Mark McGwire went deep in the fifth off Orel Hershiser, the first of 58 he would hit this season.

#85---Dominican Republic v. Venezuela, 2/7/2010 (Caribbean Series)

The MLB Network has turned the Caribbean Series into either a great opportunity to watch meaningful baseball in February or a tremendous tease, depending on one's perspective. Yeah, it's nice to see some serious hardball action with some vaguely familiar names, but it lasts for a week and then there's a whole month until exhibition games return and two months before there is another game taken anywhere near as seriously. I prefer to see the glass as half-full.

#84---CLE @ HOU, 4/4/2009

This exhibition game just before the season started featured a ninth-inning rally by the Indians off the (amazingly still in the majors) Doug Brocail. With one out in the ninth, Choo and Espino singled, but Ryan Garko popped out and the Tribe was down to their last out. Jamey Carroll was hit by a pitch, then Grady Sizemore tied the game with a single to right. A throwing error by Chris Johnson scored the go-ahead run.

I was surprised when looking over this scoresheet that just a year and a half ago Shin-Soo Choo was batting sixth in a Cleveland lineup.

#83---DET @ CLE, 9/20/2008

I did not mess up the scanning of this sheet; it must have printed funny back in 2008 and I used it anyway. The Indians beat the Tigers in what was expected before the season to be a key late season game, but instead was a battle of two teams going nowhere, the Tigers collapsing and the Indians surging. Justin Verlander allowed four runs and made 97 pitches in four innings, and Shin-Soo Choo had a huge game with two singles, two walks, and a warning track fly.

#82---PIT @ CLE, 3/9/2007

This spring training game was not very interesting. It did feature Adam Miller, the much-hyped Tribe pitching prospect, who had a great spring training but soon saw his career undone by injuries. Miller gave up a walk, an infield hit, induced a foul pop, and struck out three.

#81---BOS @ TEX, 4/3/2006

This was an Opening Day game in 2006, with Kevin Millwood giving up five runs in five innings in his Texas debut. Kevin Youkilis batting eighth, Ian Kinsler ninth, and Jonathon Papelbon working the eighth are reminders that a lot of things change in baseball in four years.

#80---OAK @ BAL, 4/7/2005

Oakland beat Baltimore 5-1 with Dan Haren pitching six, the only run he allowed being Brian Roberts' leadoff shot. Eric Byrnes' three-run homer off one of my favorite players, Steve Kline, gave them the lead in the eighth. What I like about this game, though, is it is one of the rare (102 games) appearances of Sammy Sosa as an Oriole. Also, the Baltimore lineup features two players that hit 500 home runs--and they batted fifth and sixth.

#79---OAK @ ANA, 4/18/2004

Oakland beat up on Anaheim in this early season encounter, but the Angels would prevail in the end, besting the A's for the AL West title by one game. Ben Weber and his double pump glove action was one of my favorite pitchers to watch. Barry Zito was a tad inefficient with his pitches, making 102 in just six innings despite allowing just one run on four hits, one walk, and four strikeouts.

#78---BAL @ CLE, 4/16/2003

Since Jake Westbrook was just traded by the Indians, I grabbed the first 2003 scoresheet I could find of his (if you haven't noticed, I generally cycle through seasons from 1998-present to pick the scoresheet of the week, with some earlier seasons sprinkled in). The Indians lost this game, but Westbrook pitched pretty well--it looks as if he was held to a 90 pitch limit as he tossed 5 2/3 allowing one run, two hits, three walks, and two strikeouts. Cleveland led 3-1 after Vizquel's fifth inning homer, but Billy Traber and Danys Baez let it slip away in the eighth and ninth, with Melvin Mora's homer to leadoff the latter frame the game-winner.

#77---DET @ CLE, 3/2/2002

This spring training game featured three homers by each side, including a pair as part of a three-run ninth inning rally for the Tribe. I don't recall Chris Coste, Todd Dunwoody, or Brooks Kieschnick being in the organization. But what's really funny is that for some reason I wrote down "475 ft" as the distance for Kieschnick's homer. Sure it was.

#76---DET @ CLE, 4/20/2001

I didn't track balls and strikes on this sheet--helpfully noted by "NO B/S", as if I might have thought this was a game in which every PA was resolved on the first pitch, including strikeouts and walks.

Self-snark aside, this was a pretty good game. The Indians led 3-1 after three, but Detroit scored two in the sixth and one in the seventh to go up. The Tribe tied it off Matt Anderson and CJ Nitkowski in the eighth, but stranded runners on first and third with one out. With the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Einar Diaz singled home the winner off of Todd Jones. I have no recollection of Tiger catcher Cardona.

#75---NYA @ TOR, 6/6/2010

This was a silly attempt to show what a combination scoresheet based on the Reisner (situational) method and a traditional scoring system might look like. There are two diamonds in each scorebox. The first is to record the situation (including outs, for which you circle 0, 1, or 2 although they didn't show up well in the scane) and baserunner advancement before the conclusion of the at bat, as you would in the Reisner system. The second is for tracing the runner's progress around the diamond, traditional style. You need not record how he advanced, since the Reisner portion does that for you, but it is helpful to mark stolen bases and CS that you'll want to credit to the individual's stat line.

Scoring like this is not particularly viable--it's basically scoring the game twice, once using the Resiner system and once traditionally. But it does give you both the situation and the traditional, individual-focused picture at the same time.

Unrelated note: If you're interested in LL Bean's scoring system, which I've touched on before here, you'll want to read my recent posts at Walk Like a Sabermetrician. The first mimics Bean's system. The second includes one of Bean's own scoresheets and his scoring key, thanks to Henry and the Bean company.

#74---CLE @ TB, 4/8/2000

I always like highlighting games featuring Dave Burba. The Indians won this early season game at Tropicana Field 6-4 as Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome hit back-to-back homers in the fifth. Mo Vaughn's three-run shot in the bottom of the sixth concluded the scoring. Unfortunately, Burba was relieved after six by Scott Kamienicki, which is a thoroughly unholy thing to have happen.

#73---CLE @ MIN, 4/11/1999

This was a wild early-season encounter won by the Indians 9-8. Plenty of offense to go around, from two-run homers by Jim Thome and Wil Cordero, to a triple and two doubles from Richie Sexson, to a two-out, bases-clearing triple by Todd Walker.

One thing you'll notice on the sheet in a few places (see Guzman's fourth-inning at bat for instance) is the presence of a "?". Long before it was a LOST episode, ? was my version of Phil Rizutto's WW for "Wasn't Watching". The ?s in Guzman's at bat indicate that I knew two pitches were thrown, but I either didn't know whether they were balls or strikes or what the sequence was.

The ? was pretty common in my early sheets, largely as the result of scoring a lot of games off of the radio. Now it's been eliminated, as in the GameTracker era one can simply get on the internet and look up whatever it was that you missed, whether due to broadcaster incompetence and inattention or your own.

#72---CLE @ FLA, 3/22/1998

I don't think I've ever been as excited for a spring training game as I was for this 1998 encounter between the Indians and Marlins. I'm absolutely confident that I will never be more excited for a spring training game, unless on some trillion-to-one shot a descendant of mine ever plays in one. Seriously, it's a spring training game.

But I was all excited to see the Indians try to avenge their World Series loss to the Marlins by winning a meaningless game, and sure enough they did, 6-0. Believe it or not, it didn't erase the World Series from my memory.

#71---Norwich @ Akron-Canton, 4/21/1996

This sheet comes from a Norwich(NYA)/Canton-Akron (CLE) AA game I attended in April, 1996. The scoring is horrible--using the diamond method without tracing the diamond makes for an illegible mess. Notable names in the game include Shane Spencer, Rickey Ledee, Enrique Wilson, Richie Sexson, Bruce Aven, and Alex Ramirez.

#70---STL @ PHI, 5/5/2010

For 2010, I have expanded my coding system to allow for more detail, primarily about the location of batted balls. The outfield is broken down into 7l, 7, 78, 87, 8, 89, 98, 9, and 9l, with the l represented by a cursive l to avoid any confusion with my older scoresheets which used l for line drive. Additionally, there is s for shallow, d for deep, w for warning track/wall, and implied m for medium depth on outfield batted balls.

Examples on display in this sheet include but are not limited to:

* Rasmus' second inning double, a fly ball down the right field line and to the warning track (9l)
* Ibanez' second inning fly to left, caught in medium left-center (78)
* Ludwick's third inning fly to center, caught in medium center-right (89)
* Utley's fourth inning line drive to deep right
* Kendrick's fifth inning pop to second, caught in shallow right-center (98s)
* Rasmus' ninth inning fly to right, caught near the line and medium-deep (9l)

On hits, the location detail across the width of the field is listed next to the hit code itself (ie. =98l), but the depth is recorded as a subscript. For outs, all clarifying location detail is written as a subscript.

#69---CLE @ SEA, 7/26/2009

This was the last game that Cliff Lee would pitch for the Indians before being traded to the Phillies. He pitched seven innings and allowed just two runs as Cleveland supported him with four homers. Of course, Lee would wind up in Seattle during the off-season.

#68---CLE @ MIN, 7/6/2008

This was one of the few losses absorbed by Cliff Lee in his 2008 Cy Young season. The Indians led 3-1 going into the bottom of the seventh, but it from there it was slow death by one base advancements: walk, infield single, single, single, walk. The last eleven Cleveland batters were retired in order, enabling the Twins to win 4-3.

#67---CLE @ TOR, 7/8/2007

The Indians won their division in 2007, but this 1-0 loss to the Blue Jays in the final game before the All-Star break was one of the more frustrating games of the season. Josh Towers was perfect through 5 2/3, finally allowing a hit to Josh Barfield. Cleveland finally managed to mount a scoring opportunity in the ninth inning, but they left the bases loaded.

Meanwhile, Paul Byrd had been matching Towers' zeroes, but a one-out double by Reed Johnson and single by Alex Rios allowed Toronto to record the game's only tally in the bottom of the ninth. The game required just over 208 pitches to complete.

#66---KC @ CLE, 9/13/2006

There's nothing particularly notable about this mid-September scoresheet. It was not a very involved scoresheet by my standards, as I didn't bother to track pitches and used the diamond method. Ambiroix Burgos and Andy Cisco make appearances; I think those two will stick in my mind for some time to come despite having less than impressive careers.

#65---CLE @ LAA, 4/20/2005

The Angels beat the Indians 2-0 behind former Tribe ace Bartolo Colon, who'd win the Cy Young award with a win-lucky campaign. Notable is the presence of Grady Sizemore down in the order; he'd quickly be moved up to #1 and hasn't hit down in the order since. Jake Westbrook pitched well in defeat for Cleveland, tossing an 8-inning CG, but yielding a tater to Chone Figgins of all people.

The Account-Form Scoresheet

Most scoring systems endeavor to keep a chronological account of the game (at least in theory--only the Project Scoresheet system is purely linear, but one can reconstruct the game in order from a traditional scoresheet). However, what if one was only interested in recording the basic box score statistics of individual players, and not about preserving the game play-by-play?

For starters, you could certainly save a lot of paper. You could eliminate a lot of codes--there'd be no need to record wild pitches, passed balls, balks, and the like (remember, I said basic box score statistics). It would be possible to describe each batter's plate appearance in just a few characters.

As is the case with so many other baseball topics, one can turn to Bill James for a creative idea about how to do this. In the 1983 Abstract, he introduced what he called the account-form box score. It was a box score that retained much of the data from a scoresheet, yet was compact enough to be printed in a space no larger than that devoted to traditional box scores.

I recently threw together a new scoresheet that records only the information necessary to create an account-form box score of a game. I made a few tweaks to James' coding system, but for the most part I just used it as is.

First, the ways to reach base:

S = single
D = double
T = triple
H = home run
W = walk
I = intentional walk
B = hit batter
E = error
f = fielder's choice (at end of code)

Three baserunning events are noted, by use of a lowercase letter after the on-base code:

s = steal
c = caught stealing
x = other out on base (That is charged to the runner, like a pickoff or out advancing when not forced. If the runner is retired on a force, no "x" is added).

Outs are recorded in typical scorekeeping notation--a ground out to short is "63", a fly to right is "9", a strikeout is "K". Double plays get a D prefix--"D643". A sacrifice hit gets a b suffix (for bunt); a sac fly needs no modifier because it will involve a RBI. If a fielder's choice results in a batter-runner not reaching base (i.e. it is the third out of the inning, so the batter-runner never actually gains first), then it is recorded with a "f" suffix (for example, 46f).

When a batter gets a RBI for driving in someone other than himself, James uses a ', so D' is a RBI double. D" would be a two-run double. When three other runners score, an exclamation point is used, so a bases-clearing double is D!. Thus, a solo homer is just H, a three-run homer is H", and a grand slam is H! A sac fly to left is 7'.

In James' system, batter-runners that reached base and do not end up scoring are given lower case symbols...s, d, t, etc. If you are keeping a paper scoresheet in this style, this is problematic, as you'll have to do a lot of erasing. So what I did instead was embolden the codes of batter-runners who scored. When paper scoring, this is easily accomplished by tracing a pencil marking with black ink. When keeping a paper scoresheet, it is also helpful to mark off the innings, which I did with a number in the far left portion of the box.

The biggest drawback to the account-form box as James envisioned it was that pitcher records are hard to read. James simply noted the pitchers by the number of batters they faced each time through the order. Suppose for instance that CC Sabathia faced 32 hitters, Phil Hughes faced one, and Mariano Rivera faced five. James notation would be:
Sabathia (9995), Hughes(xxx1), Rivera (xxx32)

Sabathia faced nine hitters the first three times through the order, than five the fourth. Hughes faced no batters the first three times through, and one on the fourth. Rivera faced no batters the first three times, the final three on the fourth, and two on the fifth.

This makes it a chore to read through the account and tally up a pitcher's statistics (the same issue exists for batters of course, but it is a lot easier to read across a row to take in the result of three to six plate appearances than it is to read up and down column to take in the result of potentially dozens of plate appearances). There's no easy solution--the best option might be to just give each pitcher a basic line, perhaps in the format of (IP H R ER W K Dec), like:

Sabathia (7.2 8 3 2 2 6 W) or Sabathia (7.2, 8, 3, 2, 2, 6, W)

Also, I tend to think that a better notation to indicate batters faced for the above example would be something like:

Sabathia (1-32), Hughes (33), Rivera (34-38)

This does not solve the problem with reading a pitcher's performance I described above, and it may force you to count off by nine (9, 18, 27, 36, etc.) in order to figure out where to start reading the scoresheet to find a particular pitcher, but I think it's more intuitive and it saves a little space that is being given back by listing out pitcher lines. Of course, counting off by nine shouldn't be a problem for those versed in systems (such as Project Scoresheet) that use numbered boxes.

Another issue is how to list substitutions. When printing a box score, it is easy to insert an extra line for substitutes and indent it. But with a pre-printed scoresheet, it's trickier. What I've done is use letters (a, b, c, d, etc.) to show substitutions. The timing of the substitutions is noted by using the first time through the batting order that the player appeared. For example:

[a Giambi 4] indicates that Giambi pinch hit, with his first PA coming the fourth time through the order in the batting order slot where a is listed.
[d PR Guzman 5] indicates that Guzman pinch-ran the fifth time through the order.
[c 6 Everett 3] indicates that Everett was a defensive replacement at shortstop, and that his first PA (if in fact he got one) would come the third-time through the order. The exact time he entered the game defensively is not recorded, as it isn't on a typical basic box score.

This allows the scoresheet to be more compact, but it does make it a little tougher to quickly read batting lines for lineup slots in which multiple players appeared.

Honestly, I don't have a lot of use for an account-form scoresheet myself; it's not detailed enough for my tastes as a scorekeeper. It's the box score that I want--I want to be able to get on the internet in the morning and read a mini-scoresheet rather than a box score. Which line tells you more, and more importantly IMO tells you a better story:

63, K, H", 9, W

or

4 1 1 3 1 1
with a note below saying HR: Player X

or

4 1 1 3 1 1 HR
as the more helpful Baseball-Reference box score does?

It's true that the account-form style requires you to do a little counting in your head if you want to know H-AB, or runs scored, or the other box score categories. However, I'd argue that it's very easy to do that sort of addition, and that it also is a cosmetic improvement--there are an awful lot of zeros in box scores.

Incidentally, this is the same reason that all of the scoresheets I design myself omit columns in which to record batting lines. I'd rather devote that space to larger scoreboxes and do some math in my head than waste a bunch of space on columns I'll have to fill in to create a box score that I could just as easily read on the internet. Pitchers are a different story, as it is much harder to get a quick read on their performance as the number of scoreboxes under consideration is much larger (and more spread out) than for a batter.

Any site that implemented an account-form box score would instantly get all of my morning box score hits. I'm a little surprised that someone hasn't implemented it or something similar on online just to stand out, as there are so many places that you can go to get box scores. As it stands now, only Baseball-Reference offers something truly unique.

Below is an account-form scoresheet for Cincinnati @ Milwaukee, 4/10/2008, copied from a scoresheet I kept in a different format. I simply typed the account into Excel, although ideally I would have paper-scored it and scanned. It will be easier to read this way though. A drawback is that since I am using the cells in the spreadsheet, if a leadoff hitter scored, the inning number is in bold as well. I did not include pitcher lines, just the batters they faced:



Let me go through batter-by-batter and write what they did in English:

Patterson: grounded to second, grounded to second, grounded to second, grounded to second, flied to center
Keppinger: grounded to short, popped to short, grounded to pitcher, intentional walk, grounded to pitcher
Griffey: struck out, flied to center, walk, hit into double play
Phillips: flied to right, flied to right, struck out, grounded to second
Dunn: grounded to first (a pop to first would have been marked 3^; although James used 3 for a pop to first and 3- for a grounder to first), grounded to first (pitcher covering), single (scored), grounded to short
Encarnacion: grounded to third, walk (scored), two-run home run, single
Hatteberg: walk, single (put out on base), double (scored), grounded to second
Bako: struck out, RBI double, RBI single, walk
Harang: sac bunt to first, struck out, single
Votto: flied to center

Weeks: popped to third, flied to center, hit into fielder's choice at second, popped to second
Gross: double, flied to center, grounded to second
Counsell: hit into fielder's choice at short
Fielder: grounded to short, flied to left, flied to right, popped to third
Braun: grounded to short, popped to third, grounded to third, struck out
Hall: double (scored), grounded to short, grounded to short, grounded to second (via pitcher)
Hart: sac bunt to first, grounded to short, struck out
Villanueva: sac bunt to pitcher, struck out
Kapler: grounded to first (pitcher covering)
Kendall: grounded to short, single, single

#64---KC @ CLE, 9/17/2004

Continuing the Indians/Royals theme for another week is this 2004 sheet. There are two notable extra-base hits in this one; first, Travis Hafner tripled off the center field wall in the bottom of the sixth. He was still removed for a pinch-runner (Lou Merloni, who I'd pretty much forgotten had played for the Tribe) after walking in the eighth. The more impressive one was Abraham Nunez (batting third no less) hitting an inside-the-park-homer on a line drive to right field to lead off the seventh.

#63---KC @ CLE, 6/24/2003

The Royals beat the Indians 3-1 in this mundane June game. I just like some of the names; Ken Harvey, the big singles hitting 1B/DH for KC; was it Aaron Guiel, a forgettable outfielder?; Shane Spencer batting cleanup for the Tribe; and Kansas City's starting pitcher, the one-time big prospect (compared to Tom Glavine, of course) Chris George.

This seems like a lot longer than seven years ago, to be honest. Maybe that can be chalked up as a positive of rooting for a bad baseball teams--they make the summer seem longer, they don't jog the memory as quickly as the good ones years later. They make time seem just a little slower, just a little more forgiving. Alright, maybe I'm taking it too far; after all, this was the last year the Royals finished with a winning record.

#62---CLE @ DET, 5/21/2002

Back-to-back home runs by Dmitri Young and Randall Simon. Hopefully no sausages were harmed in this game. Also, the Indians simultaneously had Ricky Gutierrez, Bruce Aven, Einar Diaz, and Jolbert Carbera in the lineup, which is why 2002 was the worst season to watch in my time as a fan.

#61---CIN @ CLE, 6/8/2001

The Reds beat the Indians 7-4 in this game; there was nothing particularly noteworthy about it. I believe I may have picked this sheet out because it illustrates a mid-batter pitching change; Rob Bell was pulled after the third pitch to the 6th place hitter in the 3rd inning (hence the entry code for Brower of 6-3(AC), with "A" for after and "C" representing the third pitch)). Brower was a eminently forgettable pitcher for the Indians from 1999-2000, but I used to mockingly call him "The Future" because Tribe radio announcer Tom Hamilton once referred to him as part of the future of the pitching staff. If Jim Brower were truly your future, it would probably be time to sell short.

#60---CLE @ KC, 9/23/2000

Unfortunately, I have now exhausted my supply of guest scoresheets. Please feel free to send in one of your sheets any time, as I'd love to continue to showcase scorekeeping diversity on this blog.

2000 was a frustrating year to be an Indian fan, as the team was ravaged by injuries, particularly to the pitching staff. The results were on full display in this game as Charlie Nagy, nearing the end of the line with a 8.21 ERA in 57 innings, started and was relieved by luminaries Jamie Brewington, Chris Nichting, Cam Carincross, and Chris Haney. Meanwhile, the offense was stymied by Blake Stein and Jose Santiago.

Guest Scoresheet #5: Isaac Lin, MON @ NYN 10/3/2004

Scorer: Isaac Lin
Game: MON @ NYN, 9/24/2004

Guest Scoresheet #4: Isaac Lin, PHI @ MON 9/24/2004

Scorer: Isaac Lin
Game: PHI @ MON, 9/24/2004

Here is Isaac's description of his scoresheets (a second example will be posted next week):

"I use my own version of Alex Reisner's situational scoring
scoresheet (I based it on the one he made available before branding
his system the Reisner system). The primary change I made was to
remove some redundancy in the pitch count section, in order to make
room for notes.

The last Expos game I attended was their last home victory ever, on
Friday, September 24, 2004, against Philadelphia. I was a bit late and
so didn't score the first four Phillie batters. I just realized now
that I mislabelled my note on the distance for Termel Sledge's HR; it
should be marked as a note for box 22. In the top of the 7th, a group
came down from the bleachers and lined up in the walkway behind the
lower tier of the 1st base-side stands, each person holding one
letter, spelling out a plea: "Jackie Robinson and Montreal made history
Mr. Selig keep the memory alive!" Alas, it was for naught...

I watched the last Expos game ever on TV: October 4, 2004, against
New York. The broadcasters kept raising random bits of trivia, like
there were 620 Expos players in 36 seasons, and I wrote down a few
of them. In the top of the ninth, some of the fans started chanting
"Let's go Expos", a nice nod to history. First base coach Jerry
Morales gave the game ball to Frank Robinson. It was a sad moment for
me to see the end of the Expos. Normally I fill in the game totals
after the last pitch, but I wasn't able to bring myself to do it, and
they remain blank."

Guest Scoresheet #3: Mark Davey, MIL @ MIN 5/22/2009

Scorer: Mark Davey
Website: BaseballBingo.org
Game: MIL @ MIN, 5/22/2009

Mr. Davey sent me the first five innings of a scoresheet using his linear scorecard, a download and full description of which you can find at his website. The linear scorecard is inspired by Alex Reisner's plain-paper system, allowing one to keep a Project Scoresheet account of the game on a very simple form. Since it is based on the Project Scoresheet system, scoring is completely linear with no backtracking. Mark's form allows one to keep a game in the plain-paper style while still having a pre-printed form to use.

Guest Scoresheet #2: Daniel Wind, All-Star Game, 7/14/2009

Scorer: Daniel Wind
Game: All-Star Game, 7/14/2009
Scorecard source: Baseball Scorecard

Here is Daniel's description of his scorecards:

"My own particular quirk is that I usually bring two pens to a game, to match each team's colors (as much as you really can out of a pack of five pens). I realize this is insane, but it makes the cards look a lot nicer. And since this particular game was probably the only chance I'd ever get to see an All-Star Game in person, I figured I might as well go all out and match the colors to the teams of each individual player. (My one disappointment was that Andrew Bailey didn't get into the game--brought my green pen for nothing.)"

Guest Scoresheet #1: David Solomon, MIL @ STL 10/2/2009

Scorer: David Solomon
Website(s): Twitter @solomonsside, ktrs.com
Game: MIL @ STL, 10/2/2009

The first guest submission comes from David Solomon of KTRS in St. Louis. David kept this sheet from the press box and actually entered the scoring directly into Excel, which he experimented with for the last few games of the season. (Previously, he printed the sheet and scored on paper).

I Want Your Scoresheets

I realize that no one visits this site, but in case anyone is out there and reads this, I would like to appeal to you to send me one of your scoresheets. This site is currently all about my scorekeeping, and I'd like to expand its horizon a little bit to showcase other people's scoring.

Don't worry about your scoresheet not being good enough or interesting enough or unique enough or whatever other excuse you might offer to be shy. There's no such thing as a wrong way to keep score, and I'd like this site to help display the myriad of ways in which baseball fans record the game.

All I ask is that the file be around 500 KB or smaller, in GIF, BMP, or JPG format, and that you also write a little bit about it (if it's larger, I might edit it a little to make it more manageable). It can be as little as a sentence or as long as a page or two. You can write about your method of keeping score, scorekeeping in general, your memory of the game in question--anything you like. Also, if you kept the game on a commercial scoresheet, please give the name of the company/designer so that they can get a little bit of a plug (and hopefully not send me cease and desist letters). If you have your own designed sheet that you'd like to offer for others to download, I'd be happy to post it on my Tripod scoresheets site. If you have your own baseball blog or website or Twitter feed that you'd like to share, by all means, include the link.

I don't expect anyone to actually take me up on this, but I had to try. There's a dearth of scorekeeping information on the internet--the sites I link in the sidebar form a fairly comprehensive list. I'd like to make this site a place for the diversity of scoring systems and forms to be on display, and it can't be that as long as it's just my own sheets. Email me (weeklyscoresheet AT gmail dot com) if you'd like to share.

#59---DET @ CLE, 7/26/1999

I chose this scoresheet because it features Dave Burba, who is an OSU product. On this day he allowed three runs in 6 2/3 innings, striking out six and walking none, as the Indians beat the Tigers 6-3. Manny Ramirez left the game in the bottom of the third after being hit by a pitch.

#58---NYA @ MON, 6/11/1998

It has been a long time since I last posted here, thanks to my scanner deciding not to work. I don't have a lot of use for my home scanner other than this site, so I did not have the necessary motivation to figure out what was wrong until now (it turned out the be the software), nor did I have the necessary motivation to sneak some scans in at work, go to the library, or use any of the other means by which I could have scanned in some scoresheets.

Moving along, I included this sheet because it's one of the few I have that features the Montreal Expos. Unfortunately, I couldn't spell Guerrero (I haven't heard much from Guerro over the last twelve years), but he had the big hit, a two-out, three-run double in the seventh to cap a seven-run inning. He was thrown out by Paul O'Neill trying to stretch it into a triple, but Montreal went on to win 7-5 against one of the greatest teams of all-time.