{"id":588,"date":"2008-09-07T10:19:28","date_gmt":"2008-09-07T09:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=588"},"modified":"2009-10-18T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T20:00:12","slug":"weekly-hit-ground-ball-2008-week-twenty-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=588","title":{"rendered":"‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball 2008 – Week Twenty Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

The case of the missing error<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wednesday’s historic instant replay home run call marked the first use of the new technology brought into the game as an acknowledgement of the difficulties faced by umpires today.\u00c2\u00a0 However an official scorer might dispute the notion that umpires have the most difficult job in the game.\u00c2\u00a0 At least an umpire has three colleagues to lean on.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the World Series, where a panel of three take on the task, the official scorer carries the weight of making scoring decisions on his own shoulders.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Webb’s shoulders have needed to be broad this week.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

CC Sabathia’s attempt at pitching a no-hitter against the Pirates last Sunday was broken up by Webb’s debatable call that ruled a soft grounder back to the mound by Andy La Roche should stand as a single rather than an error against the pitcher.\u00c2\u00a0 The Milwaukee Brewers were united in their belief that the official scorer had botched a straightforward decision.\u00c2\u00a0 Manager Ned Yost voiced his disgust<\/a>, stating \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whoever the scorekeeper was absolutely denied Major League Baseball a nice no-hitter right there\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and adding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that’s a stinkin’ no-hitter that we all got cheated from\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 The use of the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cheated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was no doubt a product of the immediate emotional aftermath, but it suggested this was no simple mistake and that the decision was completely irrational.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Webb had gone crazy for a moment, perhaps his addled mental condition was brought about by a seemingly innocuous two-word phrase that has caused many a scorer a sleepless night or two?\u00c2\u00a0 ‘Ordinary effort’ is in some ways the baseball equivalent of football’s ‘offside’ law.\u00c2\u00a0 In both cases everyone concerned (players, managers, supporters, media pundits etc) generally believes that the matter is easy to understand.\u00c2\u00a0 We all know<\/em> what ordinary effort is, just as we all know<\/em> when a player is gaining an advantage from an offside position.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet in both cases the decision always involves a judgement call, an element of the play that requires interpretation rather than merely establishing a fact (such as deciding if the ball crosssed over the goal line\/\u00c2\u00a0went over the outfield fence?).\u00c2\u00a0 Such complexities needn’t worry those of us not responsible for making the actual decision; we can see what we want to see and let our bias take charge.\u00c2\u00a0 That option isn’t open to a scorer.\u00c2\u00a0 They have to use their training and experience to make what they believe to be the correct call in line with the rules\/laws of the game.<\/p>\n

BaseballGB’s<\/em> own Joe Gray knows this only too well.\u00c2\u00a0 As the Southern Scorers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Commissioner for the British Baseball Federation, Joe is well placed to offer an insight into the factors that Webb may have taken into consideration.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sabathia had time to make the throw if he’d fielded it cleanly, but I think the fact that his body had started to turn as he went to barehand it (he didn’t realize just how much time he had to get the out) meant that it was not a routine play. For this reason, it could legitimately be scored a hit, although in my opinion it is (just) an error\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em><\/p>\n

The element of doubt\u00c2\u00a0raised by Joe supports the view of MLB’s scoring review committee that the ruling was not ‘clearly erroneous’<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 For this reason, they\u00c2\u00a0came to the conclusion\u00c2\u00a0that the ruling should stand after the Brewers submitted an official appeal against the original decision (as was their right).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The scoring review committee didn’t take into account the fact that the play broke up an attempt at a no-hitter.\u00c2\u00a0 It had no reason to because this is immaterial when strictly applying the rules of the game, but it’s a factor that a lot of on-lookers\u00c2\u00a0brought into the equation.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s an unofficial ‘rule’ within the game that a team’s first hit should be a clean one, just in case it’s the only hit the pitcher gives up that day.\u00c2\u00a0 This particularly applies when the play in question occurs during the middle of the game (in this case the fifth inning).\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, distinguishing between a hit and an error can only be as straightforward as Ned Yost seemingly believes it to be if the same criteria is used all of the time.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s to say Yost wouldn’t have been more than happy to see that play go down as a hit (and therefore not an error against Sabathia) if the Pirates had already recorded several hits beforehand?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such complications and contradictions will ensure that the debate will continue despite the final ruling having been made, but there are three things we can be certain about: 1) Webb spent the rest of the game praying that another Pirate recorded a hit,\u00c2\u00a0 2) the job of an official scorer is far from easy, and 3) CC will still get a ton of money in the off-season, no-hitter or not.<\/p>\n

Week 23 wrap-up<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have to start in the National League West this week.\u00c2\u00a0 The Dodgers (72-70) have stormed to the top of the division on the back of a seven-game winning streak, four of which have come against the D-Backs (and two against Brandon Webb).\u00c2\u00a0 L.A. have a half game lead, while the Rockies are in third place, 5.5 games back and not without hope.\u00c2\u00a0 In the Central, the Cubs (86-56) still lead the division despite suffering a six-game losing streak.\u00c2\u00a0 The Brewers are now just four games back and their 4.5 game lead over the Phillies in the wild card race means that they are a strong bet for a play-off place regardless of how the Central turns out.\u00c2\u00a0 The Mets (79-62) are two games ahead of the Phillies in the East.<\/p>\n

In the American League, the Angels (85-56) went 2-4 on the week, but it has made little difference to their inevitable walk to the West division title.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rangers are still sixteen games back and the Angels’ magic number is down to five.\u00c2\u00a0 The White Sox (80-61) received a hammer blow as Carlos Quentin looks to be done for the season thanks to a wrist injury; however they’ve responded to the news by winning three on the bounce and they retain a 2.5 game lead over the Twins in the Central.\u00c2\u00a0 The Red Sox have cut the Rays’ (85-55) lead in the East down to 2.5 games and the league leaders suffered a harrowing thirteen inning defeat to the Blue Jays yesterday (Toronto have now won seven on the spin).\u00c2\u00a0 As with the NL Central, the top two teams are battling to win the division while knowing that the loser stands a strong chance of making October anyway: the Red Sox lead the Twins by 5.5 in the AL wildcard race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The case of the missing error Wednesday’s historic instant replay home run call marked the first use of the new technology brought into the game as an acknowledgement of the difficulties faced by umpires today.\u00c2\u00a0 However an official scorer might dispute the notion that umpires have the most difficult job in the game.\u00c2\u00a0 At least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,77],"tags":[560,553],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-hit-ground-ball","category-keeping-score","tag-keeping-score","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5569,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions\/5569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}