Scoring rules

[Scorekeeper]

I'm not at all a softball enthusiast, but I am a baseball scorer and would find softball scoring questions interesting as I've never looked at the softball scoring rules. Its great to have a forum for game conduct rules which are what the umpires adjudicate, but many people don't understand that the only thing umpires have to do with scoring, is to determine whether or not a run scored legally.

Not being familiar with softball, maybe unlike baseball there aren't any problems with scorers or scoring, but I suspect there might be a few questions if there was a place for them to be asked and answered.

 

[Eric F]

Running a scorebook - baseball or softball - is simply keeping a record of what happens on the field. Being familiar with the rules helps a lot to understand what and why the umpire is calling a situation a certain way. Just like baseball, there's more to the game than juts balls/strokes and safe/out.

This section is the right place to ask scoring and rules questions.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Running a scorebook - baseball or softball - is simply keeping a record of what happens on the field. Being familiar with the rules helps a lot to understand what and why the umpire is calling a situation a certain way. Just like baseball, there's more to the game than juts balls/strokes and safe/out.

This section is the right place to ask scoring and rules questions.

You’re certainly correct that there's more to the game than juts balls/strokes and safe/out. But without that record, all anyone has to reflect on about the game, is what someone remembers, and that’s been proven to be something pretty unreliable.

As for this particular sub-forum being the right place to ask scoring questions as well as game conduct questions, I looked but didn’t see anything but game conduct questions. My experience tells me that there aren’t a lot of game conduct “experts” who are also expert at scoring. That’s not an aspersion, but rather a fact. Of course that comes from my experience in baseball, but its hard for me to believe its much different in softball. All I was trying to do was encourage the webmaster or moderator to have a forum for those who are interested in scoring and metrics.

 

[Eric F]

I guess I'm still a bit confused about what it is you're looking for. It seems to be that breaking down the forum into a multitude of discussion subsets is not particularly productive. Also, the magic of a forum format is that you can get "expert" advice/input from a multitude of people who are knowledgeable on each facet of an inquiry. Each of us have our own areas of interest/experience. If you have a question, someone (nearly always) has an answer.

If you have a question that isn't already being discussed, start a new thread and ask it in which ever section you think is most appropriate for the topic. If it's not the right place, the Mods will move it. "Scoring Rules" would be the right place to have a discussion regarding scoring.

 

[BadMonkeys]

I typed in "scoring question" in the Google custom search bar above and got some hits.

 

[Scorekeeper]

I guess I'm still a bit confused about what it is you're looking for. It seems to be that breaking down the forum into a multitude of discussion subsets is not particularly productive. Also, the magic of a forum format is that you can get "expert" advice/input from a multitude of people who are knowledgeable on each facet of an inquiry. Each of us have our own areas of interest/experience. If you have a question, someone (nearly always) has an answer.

If you have a question that isn't already being discussed, start a new thread and ask it in which ever section you think is most appropriate for the topic. If it's not the right place, the Mods will move it. "Scoring Rules" would be the right place to have a discussion regarding scoring.

No need to be confused over something so basic. In my experience over the last 20 years, umpires and those who know the game conduct rules aren’t the best people to ask scoring questions of. In Baseball, the scoring rules are in a completely different section of the rule book, and its one that umpires don’t study the way they study the others. There are umpires who also keep score, but they’re really few and far between.

Of course it may well be that in the softball rule book there are no scoring rules, or that they don’t have their own rule, thus making anyone who watches a softball game capable of keeping score correctly, but again in my experience, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ve simply found that where there is a place for scorers and statisticians, separate from umpires, the answers are much more valid and the threads much more productive. I wasn’t looking to denigrate anyone or suggest anything other than that.

 

[CoogansBluff]

I see what you're saying, but I don't think the quality of a thread on scoring questions would improve if there were a separate section for that.

 

[Eric F]

No need to be confused over something so basic. In my experience over the last 20 years, umpires and those who know the game conduct rules aren’t the best people to ask scoring questions of. In Baseball, the scoring rules are in a completely different section of the rule book, and its one that umpires don’t study the way they study the others. There are umpires who also keep score, but they’re really few and far between.

Of course it may well be that in the softball rule book there are no scoring rules, or that they don’t have their own rule, thus making anyone who watches a softball game capable of keeping score correctly, but again in my experience, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ve simply found that where there is a place for scorers and statisticians, separate from umpires, the answers are much more valid and the threads much more productive. I wasn’t looking to denigrate anyone or suggest anything other than that.

For most of us (at the youth level), the "official" scorebook is kept by the home team. Sometimes it's an official book provided by the tournament director, or sometimes it's the home team's own book. Usually (in my experience), it's a parent who volunteers to handle the scorebook duties for the team. In other words, there are no special qualifications necessary to be the team's scorekeeper (that I'm aware of). For my DD's All-Star team last Summer, I was that guy, and I kept a book no matter whether were the home or visiting team.

 

[Greenmonsters]

I'm not at all a softball enthusiast, but I am a baseball scorer and would find softball scoring questions interesting as I've never looked at the softball scoring rules. Its great to have a forum for game conduct rules which are what the umpires adjudicate, but many people don't understand that the only thing umpires have to do with scoring, is to determine whether or not a run scored legally.

Not being familiar with softball, maybe unlike baseball there aren't any problems with scorers or scoring, but I suspect there might be a few questions if there was a place for them to be asked and answered.

The NCAA has official scoring rules included in their rulebook. The other guidance is a generic FP compilation as best I can tell. There are indeed some subtle and not so subtle differences relative to baseball. Like others have noted, pre-NCAA, softball official score keeping is not standardized - arbitrary and capricious often come to mind - and inter-team statistical comparisons aren't worth the paper they don't get printed on.

There are a few here at DFP that like to wrestle with FP SB scoring interpretations, but no hardcore experts and no guarantees on the answers. I don't know where else you could find a larger group with that specific interest.

That said, what do you have to lose? Try your luck here and see what happens. Generate enough interest and there's a good chance that a Scorekeeping sub-forum could be created.

 

[BadMonkeys]

No need to be confused over something so basic.