{"id":411,"date":"2008-05-06T00:23:28","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T23:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=411"},"modified":"2008-06-04T08:40:55","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T07:40:55","slug":"national-league-some-officials-are-more-neutral-than-other-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=411","title":{"rendered":"National League: some officials are more neutral than other officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re reading this post hoping to find some dirt on umpires, then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out of luck. Instead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m introducing my post on week 3 of the National League with a look at the role of the official scorer, and how it is possible to be a neutral official while being a fan of one of the teams. The reason why this is the case is that all decisions which have an impact on runs being scored (and therefore the result of the game) are made by the umpires. In contrast, the decisions of the official scorer concern how each play should be described, with a view to the statistics that the descriptions will yield. I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already made the distinction more complicated than I should have, so as my punishment I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to give an example.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the example, there are two outs with a runner at third and a 2-2 count on the batter. The pitch is a ball that gets past the catcher and the runner at third sets off down the line sprinting. The pitcher runs over to cover the plate, but the runner is adjudged by the umpire to have beaten the tag \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a run scores. The next pitch is strike three. Going back to the pitch that got away, the scorer must decide whether this was a wild pitch (the pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault) or a passed ball (the catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault). With the former, the run will be an earned one, while with the latter it will be unearned. So the decision has an impact on the pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s earned-run average (as well as a bearing on the catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stats). Importantly, though, no matter how the scorer chooses to record the play, one run scores.<\/span><\/p>\n

While an official scorer cannot help a team win, it is still vital for decisions to be made in as objective a manner as is humanly possible, so that no player is favoured over any other when it comes to adding up stats and calculating averages at the end of the season. This is one of the reasons why a scorer shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sit with the players during the game. Or at least that is the theory.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my first year as a scorer for the Croydon Pirates, I sat on the players\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bench, wore the team uniform, and combined keeping score with being a very vocal supporter. This was my baseline, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made several improvements since then. The first was to buy a folding chair so that I could position myself in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neutral territory\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The second was to keep quiet during the games. The final touch was to ditch the Pirates cap (although I would not say that this is a compulsory measure).<\/span><\/p>\n

And so there I was in the final inning of the second game at Roundshaw, on Sunday, thinking I had a perfected the art of neutrality. It is understandable, therefore, that my brain was surprised when the body to which it was connected suddenly stood up and shouted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153come on\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. This is the knee-jerk reaction of many a sports fan in response to something good happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153something good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a two-out, bases-loaded, walk-off single by Sam Touchstone. It capped a genuine nail-biter of a final inning (nail-biting does not necessarily betray an allegiance, as I could have been biting them for either team).<\/span><\/p>\n

Going into the top-half of the inning, Bracknell, the visiting team, trailed 4-0. After a 5-2 win for the visitors in the first game, a second win of the day (and the season so far) looked out of the question: Byron Cotter, the Pirates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 starter, had allowed only four base-runners up to that point. However, a combination of good hitting from Bracknell and hurried fielding from Croydon saw the lead decrease to a single run. The Pirates, who were hunting for a first win, had got two of the three outs they needed, but Ryan Trask, who represented the tying run, was at third base.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a full count on the batter, Trask charged down the line with the delivery of the next pitch and evaded the tag from the catcher. It would have been a spectacular play regardless of the game situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pitch that Trask stole home on was ball four (if it was strike three, the game would have been over there and then). The walk was followed by a hit and another piece of messy fielding from Croydon, and suddenly the go-ahead run was at third. However, Cotter held his nerve to strike the next batter out and keep the game tied going into the bottom-half of the inning, which is where the walk-off single, and my lapse of neutrality, comes in. <\/span><\/p>\n

To take nothing away from Bracknell and Croydon both getting their first wins of the season, the\u00c2\u00a0biggest story of the day in the National League South was the London Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 sweep of the Richmond Flames, which put the defending champions two games clear at the top of the division. Meanwhile, Menwith Hill of the National League North took two games from the Halton Jaguars, who play in the division below. There is no news yet on the Liverpool Trojans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 games against the Humber Pilots (or at least none that I can find).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re reading this post hoping to find some dirt on umpires, then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out of luck. Instead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m introducing my post on week 3 of the National League with a look at the role of the official scorer, and how it is possible to be a neutral official while being a fan of one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}