Hello.  My name is Doug.  And I am a baseball-aholic.  And not only that, I am apparently a fan of baseball in the worst way…or at least the worst baseball.  I cheer for the motliest crew of the Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Seattle Mariners.  Some days, watching baseball is a real labor of love for me.  But that is not all.  When I go to games, I am one of those strange people you will find with a score sheet and $5 stub of a pencil, making strange notes and squiggles as I track through the game.  Yes, I know exactly what a 6-4-3 means (it is a double play which starts with the short stop throwing to second base, and on to first.  And a backwards K means strike out looking.

Ever since I started using the iPod Touch, I have thought the finger friendly interface would be a fantastic substitute for the old fashioned paper and pencil method of scoring a game.  And apparently, I am not the only one, as evidenced by the feature packed iScore.  And what better time to review a baseball scoring (and plenty more as we will see) app than my favorite time of the baseball season: All Star Week.

Before I undersell iScore as being just a baseball scoring app, I want to stress that it is not just for scoring games, but is a complete stats application.  This makes it a fantastic app for coaches, managers, parents, and fans alike.  Although the main features relate to keeping stats by scoring the game, you can also enter the app in Game Manager or Team Manager modes.  We’ll hit on these a bit later.

Getting Started

So, there you are…You have settled into your seat and are ready to start enjoying a fine day at the ballpark.  It is sunny, but a cool breeze wafts across the nosebleed seats.  As they say, it is a perfect day for baseball.  Unless you live in Washington, D.C., which has some aversion to afternoon baseball games…but I digress.  The first thing you need to do is add your teams and players.  This gets easier as you use the app, because the teams and players you have used before will be stored forever.   So, to add your teams, just select home or visitor and either select an existing team to play or tap new team to create a new team.

When you create your team (or even if you are using an existing team), you will need to populate the roster with players.  To do this, go into the roster and tap Add Player to get started.  From here, you can select from existing players, or create new players.

The cool thing here is the amount of detail you can add.  Not only will you add the player’s name and number, you will also set their batting and throwing positions (right, left, or both) as well as their fielding position.

Once you have your teams and rosters set, it is time to set your lineup.  One of the early complaints I had about this app was that you could not adjust your lineup on the fly.  Fixing that problem, I think, has brought a whole new level of functionality to the app.  At the beginning of the game, to the extent you are able drag and drop the players on your team into the order they are expected to bat.  Sometimes, however, you do not always have the roster handy at the beginning of the game.  And I am pleased to see that iScore has acknowledged this in the latest release.  At any time during the game, you can just tap new player to add a player to your roster, or drag players around to place them in the correct order.  Finally, if you notice the designation “batting” next to some of the players, that indicates which players are in the lineup, and which are in your reserves.  So, now that you have all the players in place, it is time to start scoring the game.

Scoring the Game

OK, so here is the main scoring interface.  This is pretty cool because it allows you to intuitively score the game, even if you do not know all of the correct symbols and notations.  At the top are the basic game stats: score, strike count, inning and outs in the inning.

Beneath that is the interactive field which we will get to in a moment.  Alongside the field is the name of the current batter and the on deck batter.  To the right you will find the total pitch count.  so, let’s get started with the game by using the buttons you will find beneath the field (one final note, the fielders are designated by their numbers.  Since I had not entered numbers for many of them, they all show up as question marks).

So, you will start with the pitcher and this can be as simple or complicated as you wish.  If all you want to do is track the pitch count, then just tap the ball, strike, or foul button on each pitch which is not put into play.

To keep more complex stats, give the screen a quick swipe to enter the pitching stats page.  Here, you can track the location of each pitch, and even the type of pitch and speed (speed gun not included).   While this may be a bit much for the average fan, it is a fantastic tool for coaches, scouts, and anyone else who wants to keep detailed pitching stats.

I found things worked pretty well, as long as the batter never touched the ball.  Once the ball is put into play, whether the batter is safe or out, I found the interface grew significantly more complex and cumbersome.  As you will see, for each ball put into play, there is an awful lot of information which must be entered, and not all of it is as intuitive as it could be.

The first thing you will need to do is determine whether the batter was safe or out.  Selecting the appropriate button is the easy part.  If the batter was out, then you must choose from 12 different options indicating the manner of out.  These options included the same options which were found under the strikeout screen, which seems somewhat odd.

You will have even more trouble if the batter hits safely, with almost 20 options on two screens.  On the one hand, I think it is great that you can tell it exactly what happened, without requiring the typical scoring symbols.  On the other hand, scanning these lists is cumbersome and can be time consuming, trying to find the right option.  While I appreciate being given all of these options, I wonder whether they could have been further subcategorized from the main screen, or even broken into a series of shorter screens, in order to break up these long screens of options and make it easier to indicate exactly what happened on the field quickly, so you do not miss any of the action.

Once you have determined what the result was, you will need to show the path of the hit (regardless of whether it was a fair hit or an out).  This is pretty easy, all you have to do is tap your finger on the part of the field where the ball landed.  If it was an out, then you will also need to tap each player who fielded the ball, in order, in order to properly score the game.

One nice thing here is that the next time the batter comes up to bat, you will see a record of where each hit landed and whether it was fair or out.  This is fantastic for tracking batting statistics later.

Once you have entered the path of the ball, then you have to account for each runner on base.  This was probably the most confusing part of the app, especially when you consider that you could be controlling as many as four runners (including the batter).  If you are not paying close attention then you can end up putting the wrong batter in the wrong place.  I also found it odd that even though you have to enter the result of the hit initially, you then have to come back and indicate what happened to the batter.  This felt redundant to me.

This app works best when it is on one of the screens showing the field, rather than one of the options screens, and I think as many of these other screens which can be transferred to this format should be.  For example, when advancing the runners, it would have been much easier to simply drag and drop them from their currents positions to their ending position, and then indicate whether they were safe or out.

The most difficult thing for me, however, was substitutions, which I never fully figured out (despite quite a bit of trying).  Substitutions are pretty common in baseball, especially those involving pitchers.  If you do not record a substitution properly, then all of your statistics will be recorded improperly.  There should be an easier way to effectuate a substitution during the game.  I suggest adding a substitution button which could bring up a dialogue in which you select the player to be removed and the player to take his place.  This is an important part of the game, and is far too difficult in this app.

The last thing I wanted to mention with respect to your game tracking are statistics during the game.  Like I said, this program is really a stats powerhouse.  From within the game, there are two additional screens which are particularly interesting.  First is the scorecard (above), which you can access at any time during the game from the Tools menu.  This will reduce the entire game so far into a traditional scorecard.  If you are used to scoring along with paper and pencil, this is a fantastic way to see what is happening at a glance.  You can view either the home or visiting scorecard, however, you cannot actually score the game from here (use the pinching motion to zoom in and out).

You can also choose to view the game stats which will show you the complete batting and pitching stats for each player, as well as the full line score.  Additionally, if you are scoring a Little League game, you can change the number of people in the field, or even the number of innings.

I have to say that I was really impressed by the amount of information this app is able to process.  It can record pretty much everything that happens on the field…right down to the speed of the pitch.  My only real complaint is that recording some of this information can be a bit cumbersome, and there were times I missed a batter trying to input what happened to the previous player.  But if you are a baseball aficionado, especially if you are a coach, player, or statistician, then you will find that taking the time to enter all of that information will be well worth the effort for your team.  Keep reading to see how that information can come into play down the road.

Stats

Like I said earlier, there is a lot you can do with the information you record during the game.  I already showed you how you can view pitching, batting, and game stats during the game.  The remaining two screens (both of which can be reached from the opening screen) will show overall stats between games.

The first screen is the Team Manager, which will show you all of the traditional batting and pitching stats for each player on the selected team.  I thought this was fantastic, and should really provide quite a bit of insight both for team coaches, as well as opposing teams (not to mention fantasy baseball fans).  But this really does not give you anything more than you could find anywhere else.  I would have loved to see even more detailed stats.  For example remember that during the game, you had to track the path of each hit ball, even if it resulted in an out.  And during the game, you could see each hit so far.  It would be really cool if you could view each player’s hits cumulatively over the course of a season, in order to track any trends from one game to the next.  Likewise, you have the option of entering an awful lot of information about pitches: location, type of pitch, and speed.  It would be nice if you could view these stats cumulatively as well, to see whether a pitcher tends to throw a particular type of pitch more often.  Given that this is all done via computer, rather than pencil and paper, I think the amount and type of statistic maintained by the app should be limited only by the user’s imagination.  As powerful as this app is, it could do even more.

The final screen is the Game Manager.  This screen shows you a pretty cool simulation of an old fashioned scoreboard, displaying each of the games which you have recorded in the app.

Just select any game to view more detailed information.  From here, you will start off with the traditional line score.  I was a little surprised not to find a box score here as well.

Additionally, you can review a pitch-by-pitch recap of the game.  When I said earlier that this app should be able to do more than you can do with traditional pencil and paper, this is exactly what I meant.

From this screen, you can also view the team batting and pitching stats, as well as the final scorecard for each team.  Finally, you can use this screen to set or adjust the start and finish date and time of the game.

Conclusion

From the time I started using the iPod Touch, this was exactly the type of program I have been seeking.  And I must admit that in some ways this one really exceeded my expectations.  Its ability to record every aspect of the game is both overwhelming and fantastic.  This could really be a coach’s best friend, with all of the statistics you can recall later.  I do think there were some opportunities to go beyond the traditional statistics into some extremely powerful and creative areas, which were not fully explored.  My biggest disappointment, however, was the main interface during games.  Putting a ball into play results in a lengthy, cumbersome, and often confusing interface, which really detracted from the overall usability of the app.  Nonetheless, if you are a baseball manager, coach, parent, statistician, or just an overall fan, then this is going to be THE APP which justifies the $200-$300 price tag on that iPhone or iPod Touch you have been eyeballing.

What I Liked:

• A long missing app for the iPhone.  Fantastic!
• Amazing level of detail and information
• Stats! Stats! Stats!
• Scorecard view
• Score games without needing to know the correct symbols or notations

What Needs Improvement:

• Interface is overly complex and not very intuitive at times
• Some redundant screens
• Substitutions are not intuitive and do not work well
• Stats could go even further, and offer much more than just traditional stats

Price: $4.99

Developer: Faster Than Monkeys

One final note, which I did not mention, the developer has also created an iScore support forum, where users can discuss problems with the program, feature requests, and generally discuss how the app works/does not work.  Although I have not posted anything here, I have perused it enough to mention that several feature requests from these forums have already shown up in the iScore app.  And I have been extremely impressed by how responsive the developers have been to the users’ requests.

[UPDATE: Just in time for the All Star Game, Faster Than Monkeys has made the All Star team rosters available for download, so you can play along at home with iScore.  Just head over hear and follow the instructions:  http://iscore.fasterthanmonkeys.com/allstar.jsp.  And keep a watch for further MLB team rosters coming soon.]

Related posts:

1. Review: Baseball Pitch Count
2. Faster Than Monkeys Releases iScore v. 2.0
3. Palm Pre App Catalog. 30 Apps in 30 Days. Day 19: Sporting News Pro Baseball
4. Quick Look: Onscreen QB Stats for iPhone
5. New and Improved Baseball Stats…Brought To You By Bluetooth.