Why Baseball Needs a Visual Facelift

Baseball has been around for awhile. Over a hundred years, with a VAST treasure chest of information and history. As a baseball fan I’ve often wondered why there was so little visualization of stats and other information. It seems like most of baseball’s rich history has been communicated through rows and columns of data. Not that I have anything against numbers (I love numbers!), but shouldn’t we have progressed beyond this approach by now? I got curious about progress, and looked back at how things have changed in our society since baseball was invented.

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Take a look at how little the box score has changed since 1876! It’s really the tip of the iceberg in terms of how little innovation there has been in the sport’s design and communication of information. My hope is to be part of a revolution in changing the way baseball is viewed and understood by its fans. In the same way that Sabermetrics has opened up new insight via new and better analysis of information, I’d like to see the same happen via the visual communication of information.


Kevin Dame is a writer and visual designer who brings sports information to life in new and meaningful ways. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter @kevintdame.
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Harris
14 years ago

There have been a lot of new stats invented, really help fans understand the game, I think that one thing that really need to be done, is find a way to accurately measure the fielding ability of a player.

joltinjoe
14 years ago

Keeping score is like mathmatics.  Numbers add up or you are giving false information.  Not much can change.  A batter got a hit or an out.  A fielder is charged with an error or not.  A K is a K period.  Box scores havn’t changed because to do so would change what happened and it shouldn’t.
It’s like the calendar.  It hasn’t changed either.  Now you know.

justin
14 years ago

i guess i interpreted this as he isn’t trying to change what happened, but rather change the idea of a box score: in the same way fangraphs shows pitchf/x data or something along those lines, figuring out new presentations of what happened. it’s a pretty cool idea and i’m curious to see how it plays out. like the win percentage in game line graphs at bp, but more detailed.

John Rosenfelder
14 years ago

a few years ago there was an exhibit at the museum of modern art in new york that explored various ways to present data visually. 

check the online version at

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/

great question!

Wooden U. Lykteneau
14 years ago

In my experience, the understanding of box scores is directly correlated to one’s ability to properly keep score. The reason it’s changed so little is not unlike why architecture remains the same.