Baseball Hacks

Make a Box Score from a Score Sheet

Create a box score to summarize player performance.

Although a score sheet [Hack #1] describes everything that happened during a game, it doesn’t tell you directly how each player performed. This hack explains how to use a score sheet to calculate a box score, a neat way to summarize how each player performed during a game.

Box scores are a traditional way to summarize baseball games, dating back to Chadwick in the 19th century. A box score captures a lot of information about the game. For each batter, it captures the number of at bats (AB), hits (H), runs (R), runs batted in (RBI), doubles (2B), home runs (HR), stolen bases (SB), and sacrifice hits (SH). For each pitcher, it includes the number of innings pitched, hits, runs, earned runs, walks, and strikeouts. It also includes notes on the number of players left on base; the winning, losing, and saving pitchers; and some other miscellaneous information.

As an example, here is the box score from the October 2, 1978 playoff game between the Yankees and the Red Sox:

 Game of 10/2/1978 -- New York at Boston (D) New York AB R H RBI Boston AB R H RBI Rivers M, cf 2 1 1 0 Burleson R, ss 4 1 1 0 Blair P, ph-cf 1 0 1 0 Remy J, 2b 4 1 2 0 Munson T, c 5 0 1 1 Rice J, rf 5 0 1 1 Piniella L, rf 4 0 1 0 Yastrzemski C, lf 5 2 2 2 Jackson R, dh 4 1 1 1 Fisk C, c 3 0 1 0 Nettles G, 3b 4 0 0 0 Lynn F, cf 4 0 1 1 Chambliss C, 1b 4 1 1 0 Hobson B, dh 4 0 1 0 White R, lf 3 1 1 0 Scott G, 1b 4 0 2 0 Thomasson G, lf ...