What's The Scorebook

In the fall of 2017, I was asked to keep the youth baseball scorebook for my son’s 12U game. I really hadn’t touched a paper scorebook in over 3 years since I started using the GameChanger app on my iPad, but I volunteered to do it anyways. The big change since I last kept a scorebook was our youth league switched pitching rules from reporting innings pitched to tracking actual number of pitches thrown in the game. Most organizations have now put a pitch count policy in place to better protect youth from arm injuries. During that fall baseball game, I found it difficult to keep up with the pace of the game. I was fine tracking each at-bat and count in the scoreboxes but fell behind marking each pitch thrown in a separate section. I just couldn’t keep going back and forth at regular game speed, so I thought there had to be a better way. Later that night I began prototyping an improved scorebox that integrated the pitch count. I realized this was just one of many other features I myself would like to have in a scorebook. In my experience, most books have unused areas on the page, such as stats tracking, that teams have transitioned to apps like GameChanger or iScore on their digital devices. Also, a typical pregame process is exchanging your batting lineup with the opponent, so I wanted to simplify that as well. After lots of hard work through the brutal Minnesota winter of 2017-18 that seemed to never end, What’s The Scorebook was introduced for the 2018 spring youth baseball and softball season. The tradition of paper scorekeeping is not going away, and I trust that you will find this book’s evolution in scorekeeping more enjoyable and easier than ever. If you already use this book and like it, please tell others or share what you think on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram #whatsthescorebook.

The next time someone asks you, “What’s the Score?”, you’ll be happy to let them know. Thanks again and “Play Ball” !

UPDATE 3/6/2020 – Version 2 scorebooks with a team autographs page are now available – Order Here. Check out my blog post to learn more.