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As The Straight Dope explains, we owe the "K" to an early sportswriter named Henry Chadwick. In fact, Chadwick and another writer named M.J. Kelly are largely responsible for the scoring system baseball uses today. But whence the K? Chadwick already had "S" slated for "sacrifice." So a strikeout became a "K", after the last letter of the word "struck." The reason a strikeout isn't a "T" is because "struck" was the preferred term of the day. While we tend to side with the Straight Dope (which cites Pete Palmer's book Total Baseball and Neil Cohen's article "How to Score a Game" as its sources), you can read some
other creative "K" theories on this baseball message board. We especially like "the three lines in a K, three strikes in a strikeout" suggestion. If you're interested in learning more about the ins and outs of baseball scoring, the Baseball Almanac hosts an excellent scoring guide. And you can discreetly follow games in real time at Yahoo! Sports.
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