The Complete Baseball Scorekeeping Handbook, Revised and Updated Edition

With the aim of providing anyone interested in baseball scorekeeping everything he or she needs to perform the task, this book contains a thorough and comprehensive manual on keeping a scorecard, together with a detailed analysis of each of the numerous, and often complex, official rules governing scorekeeping in baseball (many of which were revised or modified in 2007), as well as scorekeeping issues outside of MLB’s rulebook. Myriad examples are given (many drawn from significant and well-known major league games throughout the history of baseball as well as a number of examples drawn from popular culture) of how baseball’s scorekeeping rules are applied and dealt with in both routine situations as well as the most difficult and convoluted scenarios. Revised and updated to reflect recent changes to the MLB rulebook, this book is very readable and perfectly accessible to a broad audience.

Wyckoff, New Jersey, attorney Andres Wirkmaa is a retired baseball coach, has served as official scorekeeper for amateur baseball leagues, has been featured on the radio and in MLB articles as a scorekeeping expert, and is a member of SABR.

Andres Wirkmaa
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 264
Bibliographic Info: 17 illustrations, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6389-0
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2357-3
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Preface 1

Introduction: The “Dying Art” 9

The Art of Keeping Score

1. Who’s on First? Finding Your Way Around the Scorecard 13

2. What Just Happened? Getting the Basics Down 23

3. Where and When Did It Happen? Filling in the Details 33

4. How Did It Happen? Digging Deeper 40

The Official Scorekeeping Rules and Their Applications

5. Getting to Know Rule 9 47

6. Speaking in Generalities: Rules 9.01–9.03 51

7. Batter Up! Rules 9.04–9.06 73

8. To Catch a Thief: Rule 9.07 105

9. God Said to Abraham, Kill Me a Son: Rule 9.08 120

10. Playing the Field: Rules 9.09–9.11 129

11. To Err Is Human: Rule 9.12 146

12. Free Passes and Punched Tickets: Rules 9.13–9.15 175

13. You Get What You Deserve: Rule 9.16 189

14. Winning Isn’t Everything: Rules 9.17–9.18 216

15. Saving the Day: Rule 9.19 228

16. Stats and Streaks: Rules 9.20–9.23 235

Index 251

“a handy reference…an invaluable tool. This is the best how to book about scoring that I have seen”—SABR-AZ.