REFERENCE
Every fielder has a number from 1 to 9. Here is each one, why the shortstop is 6, and how scorekeepers use the numbers to write down plays.
The numbers are the same at every level: Little League, high school, college, and the major leagues. They are the same in softball too.
The quick way to remember it: start at the pitcher and catcher, go around the infield from first base to third, add the shortstop, then go across the outfield from left to right.
If you walk around the infield, the shortstop sits between second and third, so you would expect second base 4, shortstop 5, and third base 6. It is not numbered that way, and the usual explanation is history.
In early baseball the shortstop was not thought of as a regular infielder. The position started out as a kind of short fielder, a player who roamed shallow in the outfield and helped relay throws in from the outfielders. By the time scorekeepers settled on numbering the positions, the three basemen already went 3, 4, 5, so the shortstop was added after them as 6, with the outfielders following.
The story has been retold for over a century and the details vary depending on who tells it. What matters for scoring is that 6 is the shortstop everywhere, and every scorebook you pick up will use it that way.
An out is written as the path of the ball, one position number at a time, joined with dashes. A letter in front describes how the ball was caught.
The famous 6-4-3 double play is just that: shortstop, second base, first base. For the full list of marks, see baseball scoring symbols and scorekeeping abbreviations.
DH, designated hitter. Bats in place of a fielder and never plays defense, so there is no number to give.
PH and PR, pinch hitter and pinch runner. Written in the lineup when a substitute comes in. If that player stays in the game on defense, the scorebook switches to their fielding number.
Extra fielders in softball. Slowpitch softball often plays a tenth fielder, and many scorekeepers number that player 10. Leagues do this differently, so check your league’s rules and stay consistent in your book.
Start with how to score a baseball game, then check the box score abbreviations for the stats that come out of it.
Browse all guidesThe app uses the same position numbers as a paper scorebook, so 6-3 means exactly what you expect.
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