How to Use a Baseball Scorebook

Start with the Layout

Open the book and you will see a grid. Down the left side are numbered rows, one through nine, for the batting order. Across the top are the innings. Where a batter's row meets an inning column, you get one box. That box is where you write what happened in that at-bat.

Most scorebooks put a small diamond inside each box. The diamond is how you track the runner. If the batter reaches first, you mark the path to first. If he later comes around to score, you fill the diamond in. At a glance, a filled diamond means a run.

Below the batting grid there is usually a space for pitchers, and across the top there is a linescore for runs by inning. That is the whole book. Three areas, and you will spend almost all of your time in the first one.

Fill In the Lineup First

Before the first pitch, write each batter into their spot in the order, along with their defensive position. Positions are numbered one through nine, and those numbers matter later.

Memorize those. Almost every out you record is going to be written using them. A ground ball to shortstop that gets thrown to first is not "grounder to short." It is 6-3.

Score Each At-Bat

Every plate appearance ends one of a few ways, and each one has a mark:

Write the mark in the box, and if the batter reached base, trace how far he got around the little diamond. When he scores, fill the diamond in.

The hardest habit to build is scoring the out immediately. Do not wait to see what happens next. Mark it, then look up. There is a full list of scoring symbols if you want to keep one handy.

Count the Outs

Put a small mark in the corner of each box where an out was recorded, and number them 1, 2, 3. When you hit three, draw a line under that batter's row and move to the next inning column. That line is how you know where the inning ended, which is what you will look for when you come back to the book later.

Track the Pitchers

In the pitcher section, log innings pitched, strikeouts, walks, hits, runs, and earned runs. If you are scoring youth baseball, pitch count matters more than any of that, because most leagues require mandatory rest based on the number thrown. Our pitch count tracker guide covers those rules.

Reading a Book Someone Else Scored

Scorekeeping is close to a shared language, but everyone has their own accent. One person writes an unassisted groundout to first as 3U. Another writes it as just 3. Some people circle RBIs. Some underline them.

When you pick up someone else's book, read down the inning first, not across the batter row. Find the line where the inning ends, count the filled diamonds, and check it against the linescore. If the runs match, you are reading it right.

Where Digital Helps

Everything above works exactly the same in a digital scorebook, with one difference: mistakes stop being permanent. Scored a hit that the official scorer ruled an error two batters later? Tap the cell and change it. No eraser, no crossing out, no box you can no longer read.

The hits and at-bats also add themselves up, which removes the part of scorekeeping most people actually dislike. See how a digital scorebook compares to paper.