Customer Reviews

The Joy of Keeping Score: How Scoring the Game Has Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't expect this book to teach you how to score games. The book lacks a full-size sample scorecard to use, which I would have liked. It doesn't go into enough detail about scoring; being a beginner I was flummoxed attempting to score double-switches, bunts and teams batting around in an inning. It will get you going, but if you're like me and don't know how to score a game yet, you'll be looking for more. That aside, the anecdotes and illustrations make this a fun book to read. The subtitle "How Scoring the Game Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball" is an accurate description of the gist of the book. It's less of a how-to and more of a why-to.

Unfortunately, I purchased this book looking for detailed instructions on how to keep score. While there is a section for this, it's very brief and did not suit my needs. 4 stars however, for the informative history of scorekeeping. Very interesting and entertaining to read.

The subject more difficult than it looks, mainly owing to the variety of scorecard layouts and symbols involved (all entirely subjective). But whatever the system, the scorecard should document the the game sufficiently to record the statistics of the players, and in this, the book fails. Not a word about fielding averages, e.g., but still fun.

... I bought this book when I became my son's youth leagueasst. coach/scorekeeper. The advice that scorekeeping can become individualized to suit the needs of the scorekeeper and team led me to incorporate several techniques and created what I think was more interesting and revealing portrait a game on the page. This book reveals the many ways of keeping score and the true reason for the existence, to recreate the game on paper. The author offers baseball history and many interesting and funny anecdotes (LL Bean devised a scorekeeping method). Well illustrated, a must for all baseball fans.

If you enjoy keeping score when you go to a baseball game then you should read this book. The book follows the history of baseball scorecards from the 1800's through the present day by using photographs and reproductions of filled out scorecards from actual games including the longest minor league game in history, Don Larsen's perfect game in the World Series, and Babe Ruth's famous "called shot" game in the 1932 (?) World series. Along the way you will learn various techniques for filling out your own scorecards and hear some interesting anecdotes about score keeping (such as the Yankees Phil Rizzuttos "WW" notation for wasn't watching!). All in all, the book is too short (~100 pages, mostly pictures) but nicely crafted and packaged. As a die hard scoring fan, I enjoyed the book and the vintage photos and reproductions, but I was expecting more for my money.

I agree with the reviews already written. This is a nice book and reasonably priced, but not fully satisfying. It is an outline for an outstanding book, but it is not itself outstanding. Use it as a mid-winter meditation on the game or lend it to friends who don't understand why you bring pencil and paper to the ballpark.

An excellent source for those interested in the history of scoring and famous incidents involving scorers. Unfortunately, several errors relating to the scoring rules appear. Intended more for those who already know how to score than those who are trying to learn.

This book contains an excellent history of scorekeeping (and thus lives up to its subtitle). As a fan of baseball history, I appreciated it for that. It was also a quick read, and I read it all in less than an afternoon. I recommend it if you are interested in the history of scoring.

It was lacking, however, in the "how-to" department. I was just learning to score games. I had been using the guide contained in baseball programs and was looking for a little more depth. This book did provide a little more depth, but not a great deal. It contains information about marking plays, but does not go in to a lot of detail about the rules (which are essential to being a good scorekeeper). I did find it helpful to learn that not all scorers mark their card identically because as I developed some of my own techniques, I didn't feel like I was doing a disservice to the history of the game.

It is a good starting point for the beginning scorer and an excellent reference on scoring background; but if you have scored a few and are looking to get more complex, you may want to pass on this.

I rarely take the time to write reviews here but when I read something this enjoyable, I have to make time. Baseball, as the author points out, is the only sport(oxymoronicly)in which the spectator can participate -- by scoring. While the title sounds trite, it couldn't be more apt. In short this is not a "how to", it is a "why to". And the answer is that it is such inscrutable fun. Loved it.

I bought this book for help me keeping score, but really I don't feel I learned all that much. The best thing about the book is that it goes into the history of keeping score. Overall I wouldn't recommend this book.