That said, the fact is there is very little information you need to simply keep track of your offensive stats; if that is all you really intend to do with the score card. There is little need to know, when all is said and done, who hit who in, or moved a runner to what base, or where a base runner was eventually tagged or forced out.

It is important, however, to know who scored and who made out. This becomes increasingly important when confronted with an umpire who has lost either fingers or toes to some hideous wood-working accident and is having trouble counting the number of runs you have scored, or worse yet, how many outs have been recorded. Many times the leagues rules will state that if you "don't have a book" then whatever the umpire says goes.

So, even though I am an umpire with all 20 digits at my disposal, I have been known to make a mistake on very rare occasion, so my recommendation to you is...

Keep A Book!

Download a Scoring Sheet!

If only to keep track of runs scored and outs made; and contrary to some managers' belief, simply jotting tick marks down on a dry erase board with no regard to your roster is NOT a scoring method!

Alright, now that the preaching is out of the way, [stepping down off the soap box...] here are a few tips to scoring that will help you keep track of players' stats, enable you to also enjoy and/or have enough time to coach, and satisfy any umpire that might need a little reminder as to how many runs you've scored.

To do stats, we really only need to know one of two things about each at-bat:

1. Did the batter get a hit or otherwise safely make it to first base?
2. Did the batter make an out or cause another player to be put out?

1. Did the batter cause another player, or himself, to score a run?

Here is how you do it!