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Baseball is a game of numbers: raw numbers, percentages, and averages in many different categories are tracked for each player who makes an appearance in the game. These numbers are arranged in a box score, which can be thought of as a numerical recap of the game. By looking at the box score, you can find out which team won the game, who the winning and losing pitchers were, whether anyone hit a home run, and other information about what transpired during the game. A box score is a convenient and powerful tool that allows you to take in a lot of data very quickly. That is, provided you know how to read one!

Box scores printed by different publications vary in the degree of details provided, but a majority of them contain most or all of the stats shown below. Box scores are usually divided into two distinct parts. One part shows the offensive and defensive stats for position players (and batting stats for pitchers in the National League) and the other part shows pitching stats for every pitcher who throws a pitch in the game.

A typical box score is usually laid out in the following manner. In the left-most column, you will find players' names and positions played. The names are listed according to the batting order. To the right of the names, eight more columns with different abbreviated headings appear. The first one is AB, and shows how many official At-Bats a player has during the game. The next one is R, and shows how many Runs a player scores during the game (i.e. how many time he crosses home plate). After that is H, which shows how many Hits a player gets in the game. Next comes RBI, and tells the reader how many Runs Batted In the player had. The next two columns read BB and SO, and they show how many Bases on Balls (walks) and Strikeouts the player racked up in the game. Then there is the LOB column. This shows how many runners the player Left On Base, which means the batter made an out when teammates were on base instead of advancing the runners. Finally, there is the AVG column, which shows the player's batting average for the season to date, not just for the individual game.

Below this section, you are likely to find further summaries regarding offensive and defensive categories. For example, you might see lines containing abbreviations such as 2B, 3B, and HR. These lines show which players, if any, hit doubles, triples, or home runs, respectively, in the game. You might also see SB (stolen base), CS (caught stealing), SF (sacrifice), HP (hit by a pitch), or GIDP (grounded into a double play). Defensive statistics include DP (double plays), E (errors) and A (assisted put-outs, usually by outfielders).

The pitching statistics usually come at the end of the box score and are laid out similarly to the hitting statistics, except with different abbreviations. So, in the left-most column, you will find the pitchers' names. Next, you will see a column headed with the abbreviation IP. This refers to the number of Innings Pitched. You might see a strange number, such as 4 2/3 or 4.2. That's because, for statistical purposes, an "inning pitched" refers to the number of outs the pitcher records. So 4 2/3 or 4.2 means that the pitcher pitched four complete innings, then got two outs in the next inning before being replaced.

After the IP column, you will see three columns labeled H, R, and ER. These columns show the number of Hits, Runs, and Earned Runs that the pitcher allows. Then, you will see three more columns labeled BB, SO, and HR. These show the number of Bases on Ball, Strikeouts, and Home Runs recorded by the pitcher. Finally, you will see the ERA column, which shows the pitcher's Earned Run Average for the season to date. The ERA is calculated by totaling the number of earned runs a pitcher gives up, multiplying that number by nine (number of innings in a complete game), and then dividing that number by the total number of innings pitched for the season.

Additionally, you might find W, L, or S following a pitcher's name in the box score. These abbreviations designate the winning pitcher, losing pitcher, and the pitcher who recorded the save, respectively.

Highly detailed box scores will go on to give the names of the umpires, fan attendance estimates, the length of the game, and weather conditions such as temperature and wind speed.

As you can see, box scores contain a great deal of information packed into a relatively small space. Now that you know how to read a box score, you can start to make sense of the numbers involved in a baseball game and can quickly review what happened in the game without having to wade through a lengthy article.