From field to screen: IronPigs stringer explains job

ALLENTOWN, PENN. -- Within a ballpark press box, many of the job titles are self-explanatory. The broadcasters broadcast the game, the scorers score it and the writers write about it. Similarly, the stringers string it.

This last position, crucial and therefore ubiquitous, isn't as widely understood as the press box's more public-facing occupations. Cory Chryst understands it -- and can explain it -- better than just about anyone. He has served as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs game stringer since the Philadelphia Triple-A affiliate's inaugural 2008 season. Having only missed what he characterizes as a "handful" of games, he has therefore played a role in transmitting the results of nearly every pitch to have ever been thrown at the IronPigs' home of Coca-Cola Park.

"You're entering all the data that's happening on the field," explained Chryst, speaking prior to an Aug. 4 IronPigs game. "When I say data: Balls, strikes, base hits, errors, lineup changes, mound visits, you name it. Anything that's going on is being documented. And what the stringing does, it strings along the code. If you're watching on the other end online, like on Gameday, everything you're seeing, there's someone on the other end who's entering that."

Keeping score at a baseball game is in itself a form of code, with each of the nine positions denoted by its own number. The stringer's code is built upon these foundational elements, but more complex and less malleable to the whims of the user. As Chryst says, it "generates the game report, the box score and all the statistics that you see each night." He enters it both directly into a computer, as well as on a manual scoresheet that serves as a back-up (a line-drive single to right field, for example, would be denoted "S9/L").

Focus is a requirement of the job. You can't take a pitch off, and you have to be ready for the near-infinite variety of situations that may result.

"The key to it is slowing the game down and doing one thing at a time," said Chryst, echoing an approach long espoused by the players themselves. "Like earlier in this homestand, we had a wild-pitch strikeout where the batter reached first base. We had runners on first and second. The runner from second scored. There was an error on the play. So all this movement you have to document accurately, so it reads correctly."

Chryst is well-versed in both string theory and practice, so he can generally deal with whatever the game might throw at him. But clichés are clichés for a reason, and one of baseball's most enduring is "You never know what you'll see when you go to a ballpark." Therefore, stringers have their own version of a coaching staff.

"We have support on the other end, and the job of your support person is to oversee the data entry," he said. "If something looks weird, they'll have a question like, 'Can you explain what happened?' And we'll do that a lot in-between half innings, where we have some time ... Then if we need to edit it, so it reads correctly, and the data is accurate, we can go ahead and do that.

"There's always someone there on the other end for questions. And if they're not sure, there are managers. There's people all over the place that are supporting what's going on here at the ballpark. And that's not just here, in Lehigh Valley. It's every ballpark in the Minor Leagues."

Chryst does support work himself, often coming into Coca-Cola Park during the day to assist those stringing games in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League. This is the natural continuation of what has turned out to be an ideal gig, which he can balance with his day job as a behavior specialist with the local Northwestern Lehigh School District.

"There's always things that you can you can fine tune and improve on, you know, and a lot of that is interpretation of the rules," he said. "I always say 'Man, I thought I knew baseball.' I played baseball at a competitive level growing up, in college, in some of the adult leagues in the area, and coaching. Well, I learned so much more baseball, from working here in the press box than being out on the field."

From pitch to pitch, game to game, season to season, Chryst has always found fulfillment in his work.

"I've always thought that was one of the neatest things about this job, seeing that paper score sheet turn into the box score. Like, I had a little bit of a part in that. It's just a fun experience every night here."