iScore Scorecards: Community Reporting Standards

[brentwalker]

From the thread "Alternate Scorecard Formats"

fwiw... we would love to be at the forefront of creating a new reporting format that shows the in depth information people are not getting from a traditional scorecard, and yet is simple to understand for everyone. If you guys have ideas on what would be needed to accomplish this, we would love to hear it. We just need to know what people need... maybe we can create an "iScore Community" scorecard reporting standard.

Fellow iScore users. Here is our chance to improve how games are reported and or presented to our players, parents, media and the internet. Many have commented previously on the desire to have multiple scorecard formats for presenting game information collected by iScore.

This thread is for collecting a list of things you would want to see on your scorecard. Please help me by submitting the ideas you have for improving the existing scorecard format (innings by columns) which is used by the majority of Little Leagues and softball organizations.

I would suggest that maybe we should somehow categorize our input by prefacing each requirement by "Standard:" or "Professional". Standard would be those needs required by 98% of users regardless of level of play. Professional would be everything above that. Feel free to suggest additional categories or rename or suggest additional lower levels of definitions of the two above.

Lets get the community started on improving readability of our scorecards. Its up to us now!

[brentwalker]

As a start here are most of the things I would like to see in a printed scorecard (some already exist and others are new):

1. Ability to read the events of an at bat as they occur.
1a. Standard: Identify who was on which base at the time of the first pitch to the batter of record.
1b. Standard: Ability to associate notes to a particular at bat. This should be listed as "Notes" at the bottom of the scorecard
1c. Professional: how the runners moved from base to base if not by a hit.
1d. Professional: what the count was when the runners moved from base to base if not by a hit.

2. Standard: Inning tallies for Runs, Hits, Errors, Left on Base.

3. Standard: Hit location, where in the field was the ball hit/fielded.
3a. Professional: given hit location, I would like to see the trajectory based on pop-fly (soft, medium, hard).
3b. Professional: change line style depending on line drive vs grounder

4. Standard: Recording the at bat batter when substitutions come into the game. (this is one of the items that I like about the Reisner scorecard. Each at bat is sequentially numbered. You can record the exact point at which a substitution was made as well as the association of any notes you wish to record. Both substitutions in and out of the game and back in can be recorded using this method).

5. Standard: Strike/Ball count plus foul balls for each batter in the order in which they were thrown
5a. Professional: Strike was swinging or looking

6. Standard: Total Pitches per pitcher / per inning, plus running total, including a notation of the batter at which time relief pitcher entered the game.
6a. Professional: Stats for the pitcher to include Innings pitched, Earned Runs, K (looking/swining), walks

7. Standard: A way to indicate that a batter was unable to complete his/her at bat due to a runner being put out by some means other than a hit. as an example, runner tries to steal second but was thrown out by the catcher with a 2-0 count on batter. Next inning should show the batter is up again with a fresh count.

8. Standard: Only shade the diamond for runs scored, and place the out number inside the diamond. The diamond either has an out in it (batter retired or put out) or is shaded in indicating run scored, or it has the batted ball trajectory. Shading of the base path for base runners should be done during a given at bat (i.e. runner at first moved to second due to passed ball while Babe Ruth was at bat and the count was 1-2). In other words in the at bat box for Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig moved to second base on a pass ball. Only then does the base path get bolded. You should be able to look at any at bat and see the situation which faces the batter/pitcher without having to look at any previous batter.

9. Standard: Game Day information. Whether Home/Visitor, District/Non-District, Date, Start/Stop times, Where the game was played or Tournament Name, Weather Information (Temp, Clear, Overcast, Rain, Wind Direction and strength), Field Conditions (Dry, Damp, Wet, Sloppy)

10. Professional: Batter stats on the right side of the scorecard to include AB Runs, Hits, Ks, BB, Avg

11. Standard: Legend listing shorthand notation. This could be the last page of the scorecard.pdf but some of the shorthand used might not be well known or common.

[danmcc]

FWIW, I like the software the way it is and am concerned that the constant demands for "improvement" will make the program cumbersome to score a live game. I may be the minority opinion but each day as I read the posts I see the potential for the program to get overloaded with the multitude of idiosyncrasies and personal minutia requests.
It is great software as is.
Dan

[FTMSupport]

Thank you Dan. We try and filter out things that will overburden the application... it is all part of the prioritization process.

[brentwalker]

This discussion is about reporting, not really about how you score a game. All of the information necessary for reporting is already being captured (to a large extent). What we are trying to do here is to improve on the reporting output, namely scorecards.

I agree that I too don't want the application to become to cumbersome to use. That would be counter to my own use of the app. What I do want is a more readable output when looking at the scorecard such that one could understand the events of each and every at bat situation.

[RandyK]

I like the concept of being able to report the time, weather, umpire, etc. This is standard on most scorecards. That is one option I would like to see in the future. This would be one of those things that aren't defaulted to be asked but optional for anyone to input if they so desire.

I have to say this is the most amazing app I have ever used. It is very thorough and I love the fact you are updating it constantly. Keep up the good work.

[FTMSupport]

We have fields for that extra info in the next release. You can always enter it as a note at the beginning of the game as well.

[brentwalker]

Where are all you situational scorecard users? Do you have no say in this matter?

[brentwalker]

Would like to see an option for the scorecard output so that the scorecard shows the same thing that iScore shows during an at bat and what happened during that at bat.

When you begin to score an at-bat, you are presented with the batter and his number, the runners and their numbers if any are on base as well as which base they are on. During this at bat things happen like stolen bases, wild pitches, pass balls, Balk, Pick Off, etc. I would like for the scorecard to show that for that specific players at bat, without the back tracking trying to figure out what and when something happened.

This would reduce the busy-ness of the scorecard by showing runner advancement within the "ABx" box/cell.

Please, Please add this as an option.