Baseball By the Numbers

The other day, The Boyfriend wondered out loud if you could build a whole baseball team of players named Rodriguez in Major League Baseball. The Hispanic world, especially the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, are rich producers of some of the best players in Major League Baseball and Rodriguez is a common amongst Hispanic ball players. So I did some research and did indeed find that if you comb the expanded roster of the teams and you made some of the pitchers play catcher or right field. You can construct a complete baseball team out of Los Rodriguez. I also found that they could play against a complete team of Gonzales players with a complete team of Ramirez boys in the wings ready to play the winner.

So hang on to that thought because I’m coming back to our equipo fantástico to illustrate a point.

Years ago, The Boyfriend , The Baseball Buddy and I were in Seattle for a Mariners vs. Cleveland Indians game at Safeco Field. I looked over and saw The Baseball Buddy filling out a grid of boxes in the game program. He was following the game by filling out a scorecard. A scorecard is a shorthand method of recording the plays of the game. The official scorer of the game uses a version of this, but everyday fans can also fill out a simple scorecard to record and follow the plays of the game.

On the left hand side of a baseball scorecard, you write down all the players in the batting lineup and their defensive positions. Then you use the column of boxes provided for each inning to track the performance of each batter by tracing his journey around the bases, or noting how he got out and which out he made. You also note how runners advance based on the performance of the player following him in the batting order, and mark successful and not-so-successful steals. At the end of the game, you use the spaces at the end of the columns and the rows to add up runs, outs, errors and at bats. There’s also a place on the card to note pitchers’ performance as well, such as innings pitched and strikeouts. Just like the box scores in the paper. (See, my little paper cup of freshly squeezed lemonade, everything I’ve been telling you in this adventure all fits together.)

The Baseball Buddy obviously knew how to fill out a score card. I kept peeking over at the Baseball Buddy to try to figure out what those scratches and numbers meant. Being a MOFF growing up (More Of a Football Fan), I had never seen a spectator in the stands fill out a scorecard at a baseball game. Turned out he learned to do that watching baseball as a kid. He says that it really helps you understand and watch what is happening in a game.

At first, a scorecard markings look like some kind of hieroglyphics from an ancient Egyptian stone. But when you learn the basic system, you can actually recreate the entire game when you go home, just in case the highlights on ESPN are not enough for you. How someone scores the game will vary from person to person. Some use numbers for the players, some use position abbreviations. Some people fill in the diamond in each box when a run is made; some fill it in completely only when a homerun is hit. My favorite notation for a scored card is “WW”. Stands for Wasn’t Watching. That’s for when you need to go refill your beverage and you miss something.

I bring up the score card to illustrate a point. Sometimes, I’ll be watching or listening to a baseball game and I’ll hear the announcer say something like, “ 2-4-3 Double Play!” It’s confusing at first because you don’t know what he is referring to. But in scoring, each of the defensive positions (the team not at bat) has a number. So notations on the scorecard can identify the position by its abbreviation such as P for pitcher or 2b for second baseman, or identifies the position by number. The numbers themselves become a shorthand for referring to the defensive positions.

The numbers and the abbreviations are:

1 or P: Pitcher
2 or C: Catcher
3 or 1B: First Baseman
4 or 2B: Second Baseman
5 or 3B: Third Baseman
6 or SS: Shortstop
7 or LF: Left fielder
8 or CF: Center Fielder
9 or RF: Right Fielder
(Note: The Designated Hitter in the American league doesn’t play defense, that is, he plays no position on the field, so he is not assigned a number.)

Easy way to remember the numbers is to remember the Pitcher starts everything by throwing the ball, so he’s number 1. If you think of the Catcher, the 2nd Baseman, the Shortstop and the Center Fielder all standing in a line emanating out from home plate, they are 2-4-6- and 8 respectively (all the even numbers.) The guys on the outer bases and outer fields are all odd number.

So back to our illustration. Our announcer who shouted “2-4-3 Double Play!” just said the Catcher threw the ball to the Second Baseman who got the runner out at second, then threw the ball to First Baseman who got the runner out at First for the Double Play. Cool, huh? Listen for it, and you’ll start to hear the numbers. On a scorecard for that bat, you would write 2-4 in the box for the runner going to second (because that is how he got out) and write 2-4-3 in the box of the runner going to first to indicate the double play.

So let’s imagine the team of Los Ramirez playing the team of Los Gonzales.

Los Gonzales is up to bat. Gonzales is already on first due to a line drive to left field, and Gonzales gets up to bat. After two balls and a strike, Ramirez, the pitcher (P), throws Gonzales a change-up and Gonzales hits a grounder to Ramirez, the third baseman (3b), who rockets it over to Ramirez, the second baseman (2b), who tags the base thus putting Gonzales out (who tries to slide in a way that will throw Ramirez off balance). Ramirez isn’t falling for the old slide trick and gets a beautiful throw directly at Ramirez, the first baseman (1b), who just barely catches the ball before Gonzales reaches the base.

You could say, “Gonzales to Ramirez to Ramirez putting Gonzales out on second to Ramirez putting Gonzales out on first saving Ramirez from any more damage to an already shaky ERA.”

Or you could just say, “5-4-3 Double Play!”

See what I mean? ¿Es un sistema de excelente, verdad?