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You are here: Home / Language / Why Does the Letter K Stand For a Strikeout On a Baseball Score-Sheet?

Why Does the Letter K Stand For a Strikeout On a Baseball Score-Sheet?

May 12, 2020 by Karen Hill

Early in baseball history, a man named Henry Chadwick designed the system we still use for keeping score.

Because his system already had an overabundance of Ss scattered throughout his score sheet, safe, slide, shortstop, sacrifice, second base, etc., he decided to use the last letter of struck, as in, “he struck out,” rather than the first.

And that’s why K signifies a strikeout in baseball.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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