Two outs, runner on 2B with a left handed hitter up. Short is working the runner, both 2B and 1B are back a bit (as there are two outs). The pop up is hit dead between 2B and 1B just past the pitchers mound. All three players (1B, 2B and P) converge on the ball and then see each other and stop (not wanting to crash into the others)….this results in the ball dropping right between them all. The runner on second broke on the hit and rounded third…fortunately, our second baseman saw this and as the ball caromed slightly his way, he bare-handed it and made a perfect throw to the plate where our catcher blocked the plate and got the tag down for the third out.
My initial reaction as this happened was that it was an error on the 1B-man…but then the more I thought about it, both he and 2B probably had just as good a shot at making that play as the other (the pitcher really had no chance and probably should have just stayed on the mound in order to not be a distraction.) Since I couldn’t really determine who to charge the error to…or even if it was a scoreable error (or a mental one)….it had to be scored as something, I chose hit. Maybe the right answer is just picking one of the fielders and charging them with an error….that just seems awful arbitrary, but maybe that is what was called for in this situation.
Thanks for your input….I could talk about this stuff all day
