Lets Play Hit ot Error

No question it's an error. Will stop at that....lol

 

I posed this question (I described it as a routine pop-up in the infield) directly to the author of Baseball Scorekeeping (Andy Wirkmaa) and here is his response with some points of interest:

The operative words in your question are “routine pop-up”. That is to say, I must assume that the ball could/should have been easily caught in flight: there were not “outside” factors to account for the shortstop’s failure to make the catch – such as wind, sun, field conditions and the like.

That said, a miscue such as this is customarily, and as a matter of course, scored as an error simply because the fielder failed to exhibit average athletic competence (a/k/a ordinary effort) on the play.

Granted, one could argue that this was a “mental mistake” on the part of the fielder, and because miscues that arise purely from bad judgment or confusion are generally not counted as official fielding errors, the shortstop should get a pass. However, if this was truly a routine pop-up, there are no genuine grounds to score a base hit, especially when one looks at it from the perspective of the pitcher.

That is to say, the pitcher could justly complain – if the batter received credit for a base hit by virtue of no error being charged to the shortstop – that he or she did exactly what the defensive team would want the pitcher to do: induce a fly ball that can be easily caught for an out. Therefore, to penalize the pitcher in a case like this would be fundamentally unfair, bordering on the absurd.

Moreover, don’t think that the shortstop dodges the bullet because the ball was not touched, inasmuch as the rules governing scorekeeping in baseball expressly state that a fielder need not touch a ball in order to be charged with an error (and – conversely – touching the ball does not necessarily lead to the opposite result either).

[Note that on this point, reference may be made to MLB’s Rule 10.12(a)(1) Comment, as well as Bill Buckner in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series].

 

To err is human!

 

fellas i understand all of your opinions about the mistake being made and i'm all for it. you and i both know that we are in the ears of our players when they mess something like that up because we practice those types of situations every day and expect them to be "routine."

but, tell me the last time you saw a routine fly ball fall in between 3 guys during a Major League game and it be called an error? answer is pretty much never. who would you give the error to anyways?

how bout the play where there's a groundball to first base and the pitcher forgets to cover? is that an error? by all of your definitions yes it is on the pitcher, but which one of you can tell me that you have seen it declared as such and/or you have personally recorded it that way? i'm seriously doubting either one.

look i'm not trying to argue whether or not a kid messed up or not, but the simple fact is there isn't a place in the scorebook for a mental error.

obviously i'm not the only person who sees it this way...from the Salisbury Post article about the East Rowan vs West Rowan game...

"West was charged with four errors. There were also two catchable flyballs that weren't caught. They weren't scorebook errors, but they figured prominently in East's stack of runs."

 

I think there are (and will always be) different approaches to scoring baseball games. At a minimum, they include:

1. Those that are casual observers of a play.....a fumbled ball is an error, and hard hit balls that don't result in outs are hits regardless of other circumstances

2. Those that don't acknowledge that scoring is multi-dimensional.....you can't just give the batter a hit and take it easy on the fielder by not scoring it an error. In doing so, you are unfairly penalizing the pitcher (who also has a statistical interest in the outcome, too...ERA, etc)

3. Those that actually keep scorebooks and strive to be fair, but realize it is so hard to know how to fairly judge so many odd occurances (without the benefit of instant replay)

Scoring a baseball game is an act of judgement with an application of fairness to all involved. It becomes more fair when the scorer does not have a rooting interest in the game or when the scorer can muster the courage to apply the principles of scoring regardless of personal interests.

At the high school level, scoring is highly variable...as is the level of competition and field dimensions that further distort performance metrics. I say enjoy the games and the play of all involved and know that scoring a baseball game will never be consistently performed....it's just too subjective and most practicioners are not fully versed in the finer details of it (me included).