Announcing Without A Scoreboard

Most of the time when an announcer arrives at a field, there’s more than just a backstop and a pair of benches.  Most fields will have what have become considered basic amenities such as restrooms, a pressbox, concession area, bleachers, sound system, lights and a scoreboard.  There are, however, times when one or more of these basic amenities are not available.  Most don’t affect the announcer because a sound system can be provided—otherwise why would someone have hired you to announce the game.  Lights, concessions, and press box aren’t always needed, or always available.

Many times at the amateur level, a simple tent with a table placed underneath is available for the scorer, announcer and any other game personnel.  What to do though, when you have a scoreboard, or the scoreboard is not functioning?  Your role as the P. A. announcer slightly changes in this instance.

If your facility has an electronic scoreboard with balls, strikes, outs, score and inning indicators, you need not worry about announcing the score, count, outs, etc.  People can see what’s going on and can read the scoreboard.  Plus, someone paid a lot of money for that scoreboard.  If your electronic scoreboard does not include the count, please continue reading.

Most facilities that don’t have electronic scoreboards, have manual scoreboards that only show the inning and score.  You want to make sure you announce the inning number at the start of each inning and during your end-of-inning run down.  During the inning, however, you’ll want to announce the number of outs.  You obviously won’t need to do this when announcing the lead-off batter of the inning but will need to announce it for each subsequent batter.

Announcing with 0 Outs EXAMPLE

“Batting with nobody out, the second baseman, #47 Jeff Sheerer.”

Do not use “no one” out.  You’re using a number that could be misunderstood by the fans as a mistake on your part.  Using “nobody” will eliminate that possible confusion.

Announcing with 1 Out EXAMPLE

“Batting with one out, the second baseman, #47 Jeff Sheerer.”

Announcing with 2 Outs EXAMPLE

“Batting with two outs, the second baseman, #47 Jeff Sheerer.”

In each of these examples, you keep announcing the number of outs for each batter.  If you have five or six consecutive batters who reach base, you’ll announce the same out with each batter.  This is one of the few times you need not worry about redundancy.

Should a scoreboard not be available at all, you have more work ahead of you.  You will want to feature the following with each announcement:

  • Number of outs
  • Number of the inning
  • Number of runs scored after zero
  • Update score only after a run has scored

Batter without Runs EXAMPLE

“Batting with two outs in the bottom of the third, the right fielder, #50 John Lopez.”

Batter with Runs EXAMPLE

“Batting with two outs in the bottom of the third and two runs in, the right fielder, #50 John Lopez.”

Run Scoring EXAMPLE

”Two runs score for the Wildcats on the play, the score is now Charlottesville 4, Roanoke 1.”

In this example, you will announce the team in the lead first at all times.  Should Roanoke lead, you would have announced their score first with emphasis on the team at bat.