New candidate for a baseball myth.

[scorekeeper]

I have a candidate for another baseball myth.

I was scoring a game on Tuesday where there was an OSK, announcer, and tournament director on site in case of questions. The very 1st batter of the game hit a medium high popup, very similar to what coaches hit catcher’s at the end of IF warm-ups.

In came the 1B, the P, the 3B, and of course the C. the C calls the ball and everybody else backed off. About 10’ up the 1B line, the ball comes down, goes right through the C and hits the ground.

I mark E-2, but I hear the announcer, who was also running the scoreboard ask if it was an error. The OSK says he has to wait to see if the batter reaches first! That got my attention, and I said that it was an error as soon as the kid missed the ball. The tournament director said no, and that if the batter didn’t get on base, there was no error.

I quit arguing and got out my copy of the 2007 HS rules. I wouldn’t have said squat if this was a judgment call, but this one is right in the book. 9-5-4 … for each misplay that prolongs the time at bat of the batter ….

Now I may be wrong and just not aware of any language in the rule book that says errors are dependent on the batter reaching base safely, but I don’t think so. So I try to show the TD the book, but he says the book is wrong! Of course I gave up trying to get it right, but I couldn’t help laughing at what happened later.

The batter eventually walked, and when he did, the error was posted on the scoreboard. But it gets better. In the official scorebook, the runner was shown to have reached 1st on an E-2, and no walk was recorded against the P! Since the 3rd tiebreaker for the tournament was walks allowed, I wanted to make sure someone didn’t have to pay for what I considered incompetent scoring, and asked how it would have been marked if the player had gotten a hit. The guy told me it would be marked the same way!

I couldn’t believe it! they’re telling me that if the batter would have jacked one out of the park, the scoresheet would be marked with a 4 base error on the C!

The bad thing is, the TD and OK had been doing this tournament for over 10 years, as well as scoring for one of the local HS teams. And that’s the perfect example of why no one gives any weight to HS stats!

[Maxx]

I couldn’t believe it! they’re telling me that if the batter would have jacked one out of the park, the scoresheet would be marked with a 4 base error on the C!

This would be marked as E2, home run.....correct?

[scorekeeper]

This would be marked as E2, home run.....correct?

Correct. If you’re using a Glover’s scoresheet, there’s a column for fielding, with 3 sub-columns marked PO-A-E. As soon as the error is made, a mark should be expected to be seen in the E column for the player who made it, so if the game ended right there, the error would be reflected in the player’s and team’s fielding records.

I’ve heard this same argument before, and if ya dig hard enough, what you usually find out is that there’s some kind of screw-up in the person where they get a fielding error mixed up with a “battery error” that doesn’t get marked as an error like a WP or PB.

The difference with those is, although they aren’t errors in the sense of showing up in the fielding percentages, they do get marked against the P or the C, and in the case of a PB, might cause a run to be unearned.

Here’s a couple of examples.

Bottom of the last inning of a 0-0 game without any hits for either team. 1st batter walks, moves to 2nd on a WP, to 3rd on a WP, and scores on a PB. The game is over and the box score reads: Losing Team 0-R 0H 0-E. Winning team 1-R 0H 0E - 1 UER.

The screw up usually comes because unlike an error which occurs the instant it happens, a PB or WP doesn’t occur unless a runner advances. IOW, if there’s no one on base, less than 3 balls on the batter, and the P throws the ball to the screen, the pitch was wild, but since no runner advanced, it wasn’t a wild pitch, and the same goes for PBs.

[Ursa Major]

It's possible that the reason for adherence to the myth is that -- as I recall -- there was a period up until a few years ago that an error on a foul fly that prolonged the at-bat counted only if the runner reached base. This is no longer the case.

[scorekeeper]

It's possible that the reason for adherence to the myth is that -- as I recall -- there was a period up until a few years ago that an error on a foul fly that prolonged the at-bat counted only if the runner reached base. This is no longer the case.

If you can let me know where I could find that rule, which BTW is something I’ve also heard, I’d greatly appreciate it.

I use the following sites to check out old rules, and neither of them says anything about a change like that at all.


To 1900 - http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/rules_chronology.stm

1900 to present - http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/rules_chronology2.stm

All rules - http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/jcba20_allrules.html

[Ursa Major]

If you can let me know where I could find that rule, which BTW is something I’ve also heard, I’d greatly appreciate it.SK, you know there are supposed rules that aren't rules that fall into the the category of, "Well, everybody knows that the rule is X."

Well, this falls into perhaps an equally mythological category of rule changes "that everybody knew occurred back in.... oh, what was it, the mid 80's?" I've got no source whatsoever -- it's just something I vaguely recall. And, if I do, than others are perhaps misremembering it differently and giving you the sort of conversation that you describe.

Anyway, I've got the rule right, at least. :party: <= :applaud:

[scorekeeper]

LOL!

Like you, I’m pretty darn sure I’ve heard something about it too, but I can’t for the life of me, nail it down. I’m about to chalk it up to “baseball dogma”, and just press on using the rule as its been explained to me by people in higher authority than I. ;)

It sure would be nice if mere mortals like us had access to the Rule Gods at MLB, NCAA, NFHS or wherever so we could get good answers to silly questions like this one, wouldn’t it?:think: