BOX-SCORE BAFFLED

By: Charlie Tuggle and Don Sneed Columnists Suggest Simplification


Box scores once were simple to read. When a fan saw "ab," that
was easy. "At bats." A "c" opposite a player's name? That meant
"catcher." That was yesterday.

Today there's an abbreviation for everything: Try "IBB," "bf,"
and "GIDP." Translated: "intentional base on balls," "batters
faced," and "grounded into double play."

We found something troubling in a survey of 307 avid and
knowledgeable Florida Marlins fans at a pair of games - that
more than half consider box scores difficult to read, confusing,
and too complex.

Without a doubt, the game has become more complex. Managers and
fans have access to a player's performance on grass versus
artificial turf, in domes, on particular days of the week,
against left-handed middle relievers.

That's one thing. But when a box score gets too dense and
detailed, newspapers run the risk of catering to the needs of the
few at the expense of attracting the many. Readership studies
always point to difficult-to-read copy as a reason for declining
readership. Steve Lopez, writing in Sports Illustrated,
argues that the "box score is nearly as detailed as a Melville
novel."

That may be only a slight exaggeration. Just as troubling are
studies suggesting that for those whose native language is not
English, reading a box score is especially difficult.

Chinese immigrants, whom the New York Daily News tries to
attract as readers, call baseball box scores the most mystifying
thing about American culture. What about Hispanics and other
minorities? And what about all the people who shy away from
numbers of any kind?

Newspaper sports sections could do something about this - by
becoming more reader-friendly. Many of the fans surveyed said
newspapers should publish a box-score legend daily during the
baseball season, similar to legends printed in certain financial
news sections. If an item is added to a box score, newspapers
should highlight the change when it occurs.

At the start of a baseball season, newspapers should find a way
to enlarge and explain a sample box score and to present it in a
prominent place, especially because new fans are always coming to
the sports pages, and many of those who are regulars experience
some difficulty in reading the box scores.

Major League Baseball (MLB) teams could pitch in by putting a
sample box score in programs sold at games. Little League coaches
could plan ahead and, on a rainy day, teach youngsters how to
read a box score. Our survey found most fans learn to read box
scores from their fathers, other family members, coaches, or
friends. A renewed effort from these individuals could inspire a
new generation of box-score enthusiasts. Physical education
teachers in elementary and middle schools could also start the
ball rolling.

At least one Florida newspaper has placed on its Web site an
interpretation of a box score. Other papers could follow suit. An
innovative online editor could even enlarge box scores for those
whose eyesight doesn't allow them to read agate type.

Whatever might be done should be done to increase literacy. The
legend itself needs to be simple. It need not explain how an
earned run average is calculated. But the legend should explain
abbreviations.

The storytelling style of sports quite likely has slowed the
decline of newspaper readership, according to one researcher. But
another researcher has found that the sports section of the
newspaper contains one or more pages of sports minutiae that
might be compared to financial tables in another section of the
newspaper - "a never-never land filled with arcane codes and
hidden formulas that are not designed for mere mortals to
comprehend or act upon."

It's possible that sports writers and editors are too close to
the subject to realize there is a learning curve involved in
reading box scores and that more than half of their readers find
box scores moderately difficult to very difficult to read. No one
registered a perfect score among our survey respondents,
including a MLB writer who confessed he didn't have all the
answers to the abbreviations.

We owe it to all baseball fans to make it easy for them to get
their statistical fix in the form of a box score by demystifying
this regular member of the sports pages. Invented in the 1850s by
Henry Chadwick when sports wasn't the numbers game it is today,
box scores - when explained and understood - can act as
a magnet to draw in readers, both rookies and veterans.



Charlie Tuggle is assistant professor of journalism at the
University of North Carolina. Don Sneed is professor of
journalism at Florida International University.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.