Box Score etc. (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mon May 10 19:03:10 UTC 2010

I may be able to push it nine days earlier.

Atlanta Constitution, June 9, 1896
the snippet in Google News Archives reads as follows: "The Constitution
made an effort to get iho box score as far as the game had pro gressed
but was informed that none had been made out ..." I presume iho=the.
Apparently one team left the field to protest an umpire's decision.

DanG

On 5/10/2010 1:37 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
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> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"<Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Box Score etc. (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> Nothing in the Sporting Life at the LA84 database before 1905, after
> which it seems to become very common.  Too bad the Sporting News from
> Paper of Record is still hosed up.
>
> Birmingham AL State Herald 1896-06-18; p 2 col 1
> "It was on the slate for Katz to figure in the left garden, but judging
> from the absence of his name in the box score, it is presumed that he
> had not gotten over the bag with which he was credited on Tuesday
> night."
>
> Birmingham AL State Herald 1896-06-26; p 4 col 2
> "While the press report lays the blame for the loss of the game at Joe
> Katz's door, the summary and box score fail to bear out the statement."
>
>
> The Galveston Daily News, (Houston, TX) Sunday, April 25, 1897; pg. 3;
> col 2
> "Glance at the box score and note the manner in which Captain Weikart
> arranges his batting order."
>
> Related term "leader board" from golf.
>
>
> Beckley WV Post Herald 7/27/1950 p 9 col 1
> "He also plans on having an eight by sixteen foot leader board that will
> be plainly visible from the area adjacent to the 18th green and he
> clubhouse."
>
> Dallas Morning News 1963-07-19; Section: 2 Page: 1 col 3
> [photo caption]"While Dick Hart forged a 3-stroke PGA lead, the leader
> board told of lesser feats."
>
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of victor steinbok
>> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 3:16 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Box Score etc.
>>
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>> --------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       victor steinbok<aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Box Score etc.
>>
>>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> --------
>>
>> Unless I am mistaken, OED does not have an entry for "Box Score" ==
>> "Statistical summary of a game in table format, including the
>> breakdown of the record of each team and often of each player". Seems
>> to have originated with US baseball--MWOL lists it back to 1913,
>> Dictionary.com to 1911-15 (no specific citations). At this point, the
>> format has become ubiquitous for all team sports, and not just in US,
>> but I am not sure the phrasing is used in other Anglophone countries.
>> These exist in multiple formats, some emphasizing the team performance
>> in a game, some listing all players. They even exist for curling.
>>
>> I have not checked early uses yet [see below--1902 seems likely, 1905
>> definite]. But seems to be a good candidate for an entry in a
>> dictionary that does not have it yet. Or maybe it does have it, but
>> only in notes.
>>
>> Another candidate for an entry is Tukey's "Box-and-Whiskers
>> Graph/Chart". With this one, it should be possible to track down first
>> use. Tukey coined several dozen graphical representations of data,
>> quite a number of which are in frequent use in the profession, but a
>> good half-dozen made it into math textbooks in the US in the last two
>> decades. B&W is one of them, "Stem-and-Leaf" is another (sometimes
>> a.k.a. "stemplot"). "Scatterplot" does not have a separate entry or
>> one as a single word, but it /is/ listed as "scatter diagram" under
>> Scatter n. 5. This one, however, precedes Tukey by four decades. I
>> appreciate that it's mentioned at all, but current usage is much more
>> likely to be "scatterplot" as one or two words, sometimes hyphenated.
>> "Scatter diagram" is less frequent today (although the difference in
>> GB hits over the past 20 years is only 25%).
>>
>> I don't have a copy of Tukey's seminal work on the subject
>> (Exploratory Data Analysis), but every library has a copy. Note,
>> however, that some of his suggestions have not taken off and several
>> had their names modified over time. But the two above
>> (Box-and-Whiskers and Stem-and-Leaf) are quite common and are now of
>> some importance in education. After all, if we are teaching them as
>> terms in primary school textbooks, they should be in dictionaries too.
>> I'd be less concerned if they were limited to high-school books.
>>
>> VS-)
>>
>> PS: a quick run through GB gives "1904 AP bulletin" for "box score".
>> But the year is wrong. The text is actually from 1910 (November 6).
>>
>> http://bit.ly/95jWfV
>>
>>
>>> WORLD'S CHAMPIONSHIP BASEBALL.
>>> The world's championship baseball series, played at Philadelphia and
>>>
>> Chicago, was handled with exceptional thoroughness and brought out
>>
> many
>
>> commendatory telegrams and letters from newspaper editors. The games
>> were reported play-by-play, direct from the grounds and practically
>> instantaneous, followed immediately on the conclusion of the game with
>> box-score and brief bulletin lead.
>>
>>> The plans worked with the precision of clockwork. At Philadelphia
>>>
> the
>
>> trunk wires were in direct communication with the ball park, with
>>
> loops
>
>> to the local and state papers. Mr. Abrams of the Philadelphia office
>> dictated the graphic description of the game by innings to an operator
>> from that office, Mr. Weadon on the first game and Mr. Bartholomew on
>> the second. The comprehensive story early in the day, with line-up,
>> etc., and the descriptive night lead came from Mr. Reitinger of the
>> Philadelphia office. The report was marked throughout by the unvarying
>> precision and promptness with which every detail came through. At the
>> close of the first day's game, the Spokane Chronicle telegraphed:
>> "Congratulations on rapid and satisfactory report of championship
>> baseball gime to-day. Chronicle beat all competitors by twenty-five
>> minutes." Atlanta also reported conditions in the South as follows: '
>> Opposition beaten out of sight on base' all."
>>
>>> The handling of the Chicago end of the championship games, which won
>>>
>> general apptoval for the crispness, sprightliness anc! accuracy of the
>> report, was the work of Christian D. Hagerty and W. P. F. Hayes. Mr.
>> Hagerty dictated the running story of the game play-by-play, and wrote
>> the leads, while Mr. Hayes took care of the box-score for
>>
> instantaneous
>
>> transmission when tue last player was declared out.
>> Mr. Hagerty is .1 veteran of many world's series, having covered those
>> of 1906-07-08 in similar fashion. The accuracy of the score of Mr.
>> Hayes was proved when the official scorer of the game of October 22nd
>> amended his score to coincide with that of The Associated Press.
>> Claude Powell, Chief operator of the Chicago office, and Milton
>> Garges, assistant chief operator, attended to the telegraphic
>> transmission of the report, their work being flawless for the three
>> games played in Chicago.
>>
>>
>> Once 1904 is ruled out (all the 1800s hits are false), the next one up
>> is 1905. This is the 5th edition and the dual copyright on the volume
>> lists 1902 and 1905. The "Box Score" shows up in the TOC, so it seems
>> authentic. The index also points to the same page. And the listing
>> includes an example of an early box score. I would say this one is
>> definitive--however, of course, because this is a style manual, the
>> form must have been in use for some time prior. Therefore, the earlier
>> editions are worth checking, along with newspapers of the period. I am
>> betting that this goes back to 1895 or so.
>>
>>
>> http://bit.ly/c9rm7Q
>> Twentieth century manual of railway and commercial telegraphy. By
>> Frederick Louis Meyer
>> p. 212
>> Form for a "Box Score" Special.
>>
>>
>> PPS: Tukey's book (1977) is the earliest legitimate hit in GB for
>> "box-and-whisker", with a handful out of earlier references referring
>> to other kinds of box and whiskers (e.g., French mustache), but most
>> of the 20 GB hits being false date tags.
>>
>> Stem-and-leaf plots (or diagrams or displays) make a splash with a
>> large number of hits between 1976 and 1977, so they have been in use
>> before Tukey's book hit the market, but not much before. There are a
>> couple of "earlier" hits that needed closer examination, but all were
>> either unrelated or turned out to be from 1976 or later. Checking
>> Tukey's publications in periodicals should narrow the dates on both
>> kinds of graphs, but this cannot be done with GB or other free-access
>> databases. I have not attempted to look for "stemplot".
>>
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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>
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