Most people know "6-3" is a groundout to the shortstop, "K" is a swinging strikeout unless it's backwards, 8 is a flyout to center field, "HR" or four scratch marks indicates a home run, and filling in a diamond-shaped box means that player scored.

Maybe a parent taught you how to score a baseball game long ago, and maybe today you are that parent who keeps the scorebook at your own child's baseball game. Maybe you score each game on your program just the way President Dwight Eisenhower did every time he went to a Major League ballpark. We all know how to score.

The only problem with the time-honored practice introduced by Henry Chadwick in the 1800s is this: It has become something of a lost art. When is the last time you really scored a game with a pencil or pen? How often do you even use a pencil or a pen, for that matter? The fact you are reading this means you are part of a community of increasingly technology-driven digizens, and a new generation is being inducted into the sport right now in a world increasingly shaped by computers, video games, mobile phones, iPods and other omnipresent electronic devices.

MLB.com has teamed with an Atlanta-based company called ScorePAD Sports Inc. in hopes of providing a modern answer for that forlorn scorekeeper inside all of us, and it's all digital. ScorePAD is a very intuitive electronic scoring software that is compatible with Palm OS handhelds and personal computers. Four versions of the software are now available in the MLB.com Shop, ranging from a basic Windows app at $39.99 to the deluxe $169.99 version which can be used on a Palm as well as a PC.

"In this PlayStation era, this software is beneficial for a lot people," said Philip Civins, vice president of ScorePAD Sports. "Sometimes technology can be really cool. We're hoping this is the type of technology that is going to excite people. It's largely unknown. Word of mouth is spreading, and people say, 'Hey, what are you doing over there?' when they see someone scoring with this. It's just kind of bringing scoring back to this generation. You can't really do paper and pencil with today's kids. You need something more exciting."

There are many benefits to this software's features, and reviving the art of baseball scorekeeping is just one of them. ScorePAD is especially targeted to coaches and parents of ballplayers, whether in youth ball, high school or above. Once the game has been scored in this software, whether it's on a handheld at the park or perhaps on a laptop, the data yields a prolific range of statistics (55 to 60 for basic and more than 300 for deluxe), all conveniently parsed as HTML files to a team's or league's website. That's as opposed to keeping a paper scorebook and later doing all the math and entering the data into a system by hand. If you enjoy the MLB.com world in which ballpark stats stringers input data that results in Gameday, box scores and dizzying statistical representations, then you will like this 2006 way of scoring.

"It is fairly easy to learn and has a cool desktop app that lets you copy the stats out of the handheld onto your desktop and create lots of customized reports," said Cory Schwartz, director of statistics for MLB Advanced Media. "Also, it can print out a 'scoresheet' of a game, like you'd fill out the ballpark, which is probably a cool thing for the kids. There are many features of ScorePAD that people will find appealing."

ScorePAD Sports has been around for nearly a decade, and its technology has been used by many Major League Baseball public relations departments over recent years. It provides all of the statistical updates on the Turner Field scoreboards for Braves games, and it provides data for live graphical renderings on such MLB regional broadcast networks as TBS (Braves), YES (Yankees) and NESN (Red Sox). While it has a growing representation within Major League Baseball, its technology now is viable for the masses who already score games or would be more apt to do so the electronic way. The Babe Ruth League World Series uses it; you might as well try it, too.

"We're a company that only does baseball scoring," Civins said. "Because we're focused on baseball, we have to do it right. We're probably the easiest to use whether you're one who wants to just pick it off the shelf and start scoring and by the second inning know what you're doing, or looking for the most in-depth.

"One of the reasons we're so popular among certain MLB PR directors is because of what we produce after the scoring of the game: boxes, scorecards, play-by-play. We're high-tech enough that once they create an HTML box score, the coach or parent scores the game, and then they post to that team's website. So anyone can come and look and see at what happened in that game.

"We're excited by this offering, because MLB.com is helping us reach a public that doesn't necessarily know this type of software even exists for scoring games. Most people score games in a scorebook with pen or pencil and paper, and this is the kind of innovation that just isn't really recognized. Most of it has been pretty much word of mouth. We're excited to introduce this software through MLB.com. We know every level of baseball will become aware of ScorePAD and now have access to its benefits."

As one might expect, the company behind the ScorePAD product has its roots in that great tradition of family baseball scoring. President and CEO Doug Hines started the company in 1997, back when he had three kids playing baseball and was asked one day if he could score a particular game.

"Doug was a computer programmer, and he had never scored a game before," Civins explained. "With the new Palm handhelds coming out around '97, he started developing a software for it. I had been around the Braves for 10 years, then with Turner Sports televising their games on TBS. Doug started coming to Turner Field, to learn more of the nuances of scoring, the statistics, and that's how he and I met. He would pick my brain, the official scorer's brain. I kind of helped him build the database, the back-end stuff, steered him in the direction. We asked: What would make it impressive to Major League people?"

Now they have made it impressive to all baseball people.

"If you were to try to produce everything ScorePAD produces," Civins said, "it would take you hours for every game to create that type of detail -- which you automatically get now by just scoring the game.

"If you know how to score a baseball game, it just really makes it easy. And if you don't know how to score, it's really easy to learn. If you were learning to score for the first time, you wouldn't necessarily understand '6-3' is a groundout to shortstop. ScorePAD walks you through using a series of prompts. You tap out, select the out type (ie, groundout), tap on the defensive positions involved in the play (short then first) and ScorePAD does the rest. I have people who've never scored in their life, and by me showing them one inning, they're on their own after that. They understand baseball."

Civins said he recommends one of the PC versions because of the increased accessibility for computers (especially laptops) at ballparks, if you have the advantage of a press box. If you have to sit in the bleachers, you might prefer the Palm version.

So what about the scorekeeping parent who has to walk over to the opposing team's bench and exchange rosters before the game and then cross-check information with that person after the game? That's old school. "This is where we really open a door to the future," Civins said. "With our software, you're capable of one-person scoring. You can beam or Bluetooth rosters, lineups and complete games from one Palm to the other. You can both score the game, or one person can score and beam or Bluetooth to the other after the game is over. Games can even be emailed after the fact, then everyone has the stats and the boxscores."

Most of us know that "BB" is a walk, "S" is a sacrifice, 4-6-3 is a double play from second to short to first, and a slash mark ends an inning. Most of us know how to score, and these words from Cubs fan Peter Winske of Boca Raton, Fla., probably ring true for many:

"My father taught me to keep score and I taught both of my children to keep score. As my father taught me in Wrigley Field so I taught my children in Wrigley Field. I will be damned if my grandchildren learn any other way."

It would be great if everyone in this new generation carry on that tradition. With this new product, there is a way to help ensure that this language of love goes on.