4 ms·

The Error in Baseball and the Moral Dimension of American Life

2 points by bkohlmann 9y ago

RockinRobinCo 9y ago
"shall apply this rule even when it appears to be an injustice" — yep
DrScump 9y ago
This strikes me as kind of silly. An error isn't a moral judgment; it's a sort of an accounting entry. Every advance of a runner (or failure to record an out on a batter-runner that doesn't result in an advance, like a fumbled foul flyout) has to be accounted for. If a ball is misplayed, then any advantage that results should not be charged to the pitcher and any subsequent outfall made possible by the misplay should not be charged to the pitcher. The only other movement record is "defensive indifference", like a late-inning "steal" that the defense takes no action on because it's assumed to not matter in context. But's that's officially accounted for as well. It's when events are ignored in scoring that make no sense to me. For example, in hockey, a shot that hits iron was simply ignored statistically for decades (not counted as a "shot on goal" because there was no way to account for such a thing that the goalie couldn't be credited with a "save" for). One beauty of baseball is that a full scoring record (such as ESPN's "pitch by pitch" record, which they've just ruined in their site redesign) is like having detailed minutes of a game. Speaking of which, IIRC, the infamous Buckner play should not have been recorded as an error because the ball hit something and took a "bad hop" (unforseeable trajectory), and he never touched it. The standard practice in scoring (right or wrong) has been that an untouched ball "cannot" be an error, even if proper technique should have resulted in a proper play (in the Buckner case, he should have knelt and been in position to block any moderate bad hop; in the general case, bad hop, miscommunication between players, etc.) They should have a third category for such that doesn't charge the pitcher or stick a random fielder with an error.

2 points by bkohlmann 9y ago

"shall apply this rule even when it appears to be an injustice" — yep

This strikes me as kind of silly. An error isn't a moral judgment; it's a sort of an accounting entry. Every advance of a runner (or failure to record an out on a batter-runner that doesn't result in an advance, like a fumbled foul flyout) has to be accounted for. If a ball is misplayed, then any advantage that results should not be charged to the pitcher and any subsequent outfall made possible by the misplay should not be charged to the pitcher. The only other movement record is "defensive indifference", like a late-inning "steal" that the defense takes no action on because it's assumed to not matter in context. But's that's officially accounted for as well. It's when events are ignored in scoring that make no sense to me. For example, in hockey, a shot that hits iron was simply ignored statistically for decades (not counted as a "shot on goal" because there was no way to account for such a thing that the goalie couldn't be credited with a "save" for). One beauty of baseball is that a full scoring record (such as ESPN's "pitch by pitch" record, which they've just ruined in their site redesign) is like having detailed minutes of a game. Speaking of which, IIRC, the infamous Buckner play should not have been recorded as an error because the ball hit something and took a "bad hop" (unforseeable trajectory), and he never touched it. The standard practice in scoring (right or wrong) has been that an untouched ball "cannot" be an error, even if proper technique should have resulted in a proper play (in the Buckner case, he should have knelt and been in position to block any moderate bad hop; in the general case, bad hop, miscommunication between players, etc.) They should have a third category for such that doesn't charge the pitcher or stick a random fielder with an error.