Box Score
The condensed statistical summary of a completed game, listing each player's batting and pitching lines alongside the inning-by-inning score.
A box score compresses a whole game into a table. Each hitter gets a line reading at-bats, runs, hits, and runs batted in; each pitcher gets innings pitched, hits, runs, earned runs, walks, and strikeouts. Above them sits the linescore, showing runs by inning with totals for runs, hits, and errors.
It has barely changed in a century and a half, which is a reasonable argument that the format got it right. Someone who never saw the game can read the box and reconstruct most of what mattered.
The abbreviation R-H-E at the end of the linescore is runs, hits, and errors for each team, and it is often the fastest read on how a game actually went. A team that lost with more hits than the winner usually lost to errors or to sequencing.
Bleacher Notes builds the box score as the game is narrated, so it is complete the moment the last out is recorded rather than being assembled afterwards.
What does R H E mean in a box score?
Runs, hits, and errors, totalled for each team at the end of the linescore. It is the quickest summary of how a game was decided.
What do the numbers in a batting line mean?
A standard line reads at-bats, runs, hits, and runs batted in, in that order. So 4-1-2-3 means four at-bats, one run scored, two hits, and three runs batted in.
Let the scorebook keep itself.
Bleacher Notes scores every play from a single spoken sentence, applying these rules for you. In beta now, free for parents.