1-question quiz

quote:

Originally posted by RPD:
That's how I would have scored to it too ... until I looked closely at OBR 10.8, It says,

"CAUGHT STEALING (h) A runner shall be charged as "Caught Stealing" if he is put out, or would have been put out by errorless play when he (1) Tries to steal...."

So, based on that it appears that the correct answer to this scenario would be D, because the runner would have been put out by errorless play. Pretty interesting!

Actually, you jumped ahead too soon, even though you’re correct. You jumped out of the STOLEN BASES section, and into the CAUGHT STEALING section, even though they’re both under the same rule.

See 10.08(f) below, and you’ll see it explained much better for the situation you described, and tell you exactly how it should be scored. In you situation, the C would get an assist, F4 would be charged with an E, the runner would be marked with an attempted SB and a CS, plus it may be that the run if it scores might be an ER or a UER.

OBR 10.08(f) When in the scorer's judgment a runner attempting to steal is safe because of a muffed throw, do not credit a stolen base. Credit an assist to the fielder who made the throw; charge an error to the fielder who muffed the throw, and charge the runner with "caught stealing."

But all that aside, it really has to be a blatant E for most SKs I know to charge an F4 or F6 with an E on that play. The reason for that is, most of the time everything’s happening really fast out there, and let’s face it, a perfect throw from a C on a SB is right in front of the back and literally at the dirt.

I’m a real heel as far as scoring goes, but on a play like that, how do I know if it’s the C’s throw, which can’t be an E, maybe the receiving fielder was out of position and had made a great play to get to where he needed to be to make the tag, or a whole passel of other things. What I’m trying to say is, it better be flat out cut and dried to everybody in the stadium for me not to just call it a SB, especially if the runner had taken off with the pitch.

And the lower the level, the more generous I’ll be. FI, in HS, I don’t really expect an F4/F6 to hang in there with 18 spikes getting ready to shred him, as I would for a $6M per year ML fielder.

If you really want to have some fun, see if the NFHS and NCAA rules would be the same for the given situation.

quote:

Originally posted by Midlo Dad:
The confusion here is between a bad throw and a muffed (but good) throw. There's a rule somewhere that says the bad throw is not an E, you can't presume he'd've gotten the stealer out, unless the runner gets another base (e.g., going from first to third). Let’s go back even a bit farther to something I’m gonna prolly make a lot of people sick of hearing. We first need to establish what rules we’re talking about. For the sake of keeping this one simple, let’s assume we’re talking about a pro game being played under complete OBR.

Under that rule set, what I think you’re looking for about the throw is 10.14(a), and that only applies to the C.

[/I]OBR 10.14
No error shall be charged in the following cases: (a) No error shall be charged against the catcher when after receiving the pitch, he makes a wild throw attempting to prevent a stolen base, unless the wild throw permits the stealing runner to advance one or more extra bases, or permits any other runner to advance one or more bases.[/I]

Or, it might be 10.13(d) you’re thinking about, because that applies to every fielder.

OBR 10.13(d) (1) An error shall be charged against any fielder whose wild throw permits a runner to reach a base safely, when in the scorer's judgment a good throw would have put out the runner. EXCEPTION: No error shall be charged under this section if the wild throw is made attempting to prevent a stolen base.

But, as far as I know, there’s nothing in the rules that says anything about presumption. The following is as close as I can remember. If someone knows of a rule that actually says that somewhere in OBR, I’d sure love to have the reference.

OBR 10.14(c) No error shall be charged against any fielder when he makes a wild throw in attempting to complete a double play or triple play, unless such wild throw enables any runner to advance beyond the base he would have reached had the throw not been wild. NOTE: When a fielder muffs a thrown ball which, if held, would have completed a double play or triple play, charge an error to the fielder who drops the ball and credit an assist to the fielder who made the throw.

But in the muffed throw situation, the scorekeeper has to judge whether with an "ordinary" catch the out would've been made.
This is prolly gonna be another one people get sick of hearing me say, but here goes. Its really refreshing to see someone at least understand that the word “ordinary” has a lot to do with scorekeeping. But, while I commend you for you’re effort, I want to correct you so that you won’t be operating under any false assumptions.

The word ORDINARY is used 14 times in OBR. There’s one instance of ordinary “shoe”, one instance of ordinary “foul”, one instance of ordinary “play”, and the other 11 are instances of the use of ordinary “effort”. So although I understand what you’re saying when you say ‘ordinary” catch, what you’re really talking about is ordinary “effort”.

I’m just guessin’ here, but I’m thinkin’ what you’re trying to say about a muffed throw is:

OBR 10.13 (e) An error shall be charged against any fielder whose failure to stop, or try to stop, an accurately thrown ball permits a runner to advance, providing there was occasion for the throw. If such throw be made to second base, the scorer shall determine whether it was the duty of the second baseman or the shortstop to stop the ball, and an error shall be charged to the negligent player. NOTE: If in the scorer's judgment there was no occasion for the throw, an error shall be charged to the fielder who threw the ball.

In the end though, errors are kinda like pornography. No one can really define it, but we all know one when we see it.