About

Why Tough Call exists

Most scorekeepers learn on the job, in the bleachers, with a game going on. Tough Call is a place to get the reps in first.

Where it started

Tough Call was built by a parent who keeps the book for a son’s travel ball and high school games, almost always in a scoring app on a phone. That job comes with a steady supply of plays that make you stop and think: a bobble and a late throw, a ball in the dirt with a runner going, a grounder that eats up the third baseman.

There was no good way to practice. Scoring apps have practice modes with no plays in them and no feedback. The courses are lessons you sit and watch. Nothing showed you a real play, asked for your call, and told you straight whether you got it right.

The answer key already existed. MLB’s play data records how the official scorer ruled every play: the result, the putouts and assists, which fielder was charged with the error and whether it was fielding or throwing, wild pitch or passed ball. Every play in MLB’s video library is a practice question that has already been graded. Tough Call puts the video and the ruling side by side and adds a clock.

Three ways to practice

• Practice. Ten real MLB plays a session, with the clip, the situation, and a clock.
• Drills. Fifteen of them, one kind of call ten times in a row, from wild pitch or passed ball to balks and rundowns.
• Live. Score a game as you watch it, on TV, a stream, or a recording. MLB, Triple-A, Double-A, High-A, or Single-A, live or any game back to March 2015. There’s no clip: your screen supplies the play, and each call is graded when the official scorer rules. How Live works

What it grades

• The result. Single, groundout, fielder’s choice, reached on error, sacrifice fly, strikeout, wild pitch, stolen base, and the rest.
• The batted ball. Ground ball, fly ball, line drive, pop fly, or bunt, checked against the official play record.
• The fielder sequence. Position numbers in the order the ball was touched. 6-3 is shortstop to first. 4-6-3 is second to short to first. Order counts.
• The error. Which fielder, and whether it was a fielding or a throwing error. E6 on a wild throw is not E3 on a dropped one.
• Your time. In Practice and Drills, every call is timed from the moment the clip ends to the moment you submit.

In Live you also tap each pitch to keep your own count, and after the ruling you can see how your pitches line up with the official record.

What it doesn’t grade yet

Runner advancement, RBIs, and earned versus unearned runs. After each play you see how the official scorer recorded them, but they don’t affect your grade.

Judgment calls, honestly

Some rulings are judgment. Hit or error is the big one: two good scorers can watch the same grounder and land on different sides. Fielder’s choice or single is another.

Tough Call doesn’t pretend those are clean. When the official scorer’s ruling was a judgment call and your call differs only on that question, you see Judgment call and the ruling the scorer made, and it doesn’t count against your streak. The official scorer is still the answer key. The app just tells you when the key is one person’s reasonable opinion.

Why pro plays

Because every one of them comes with an official scorer’s ruling. A play from a pro game is a practice question that has already been graded by someone whose job it is, and it is the same question you face in the bleachers: did he earn it, whose error, did the runner go on the pitch or the catcher. The uniforms are better. The calls are the same.

Who it’s for

Parents and volunteers who keep the book for youth, travel, and high school baseball and softball, from drafted-last-week to pretty-good-but-hesitant-on-the-weird-ones. Coaches, student managers, and paper-book scorers too. If you’ve ever had the whole bleacher row look at you after a bobble at short, it’s for you. New to it? Start here.

Why it’s free

Because the people it’s for are volunteers. No ads, no paywall, no selling data. You can start without an account; sign in if you want your stats kept or want to use Live.

If the video goes away

Clips play straight from MLB’s servers. Tough Call doesn’t store or re-host them, so MLB can remove a clip or change what it offers at any time. When a clip stops working, that play is retired. Live doesn’t use clips, so it keeps working as long as MLB publishes its play-by-play data. The season status note says what’s working right now.

Also from the maker of Tough Call

Boxscored is a free app for fans who follow players, not just teams: a watchlist of your hitters and pitchers, every at-bat drawn as a scorebook diamond, and advanced stats explained in plain English. If you like the scorebook side of baseball, it’s worth a look.