Wild pitch or passed ball?

If you are doing an NCAA game, or above, with an actual scorekeper, it is their responsibility to judge what it would be. I'm only an umpire, but as I understand it, if it hits the dirt first, or if the catcher made a reasonable attempt to catch the pitch (but doesn't) it is a wild one.

I am not as up on scoring rules,and Im sure 3FG will be by soon and will add in the defintitive answer....until then here is a definition I (as an ex-catcher) like......

"As with many baseball statistics, whether a pitch that gets away from a catcher is a passed ball or wild pitch is at the discretion of the official scorer.

Typically, pitches that are deemed to be ordinarily caught by the catcher, but are not, are ruled passed balls, while pitches that get by the catcher that are thought to have required extraordinary effort by the catcher in order to stop them are wild pitches.

If the pitch was so low as to touch the ground, or so high that the catcher has to jump to get to it, or so wide that the catcher has to lunge for it, it is usually then considered a wild pitch and not a passed ball.

When I score, which isn't often, even if it bounces but goes right at the catcher, I would have a passed ball. The closer to him when it bounces quickly turns it to a WP. Since everytime I open rule 10 my head blows up, I don't know the real answer.

If it bounces in front of the catcher, I have WP every time.

I think there is a very complete discussion of this topic in another thread here.

The hardest one's are when the catcher is clearly crossed up (e.g. thinking CB and get's heater). It's easy to feel sympathy for the catcher when the pitcher throws the wrong pitch, but if should've been caught with ordinary effort, it's a passed ball (didn't bounce, wasn't wild, etc).

quote:

Originally posted by JMoff:
The hardest one's are when the catcher is clearly crossed up (e.g. thinking CB and get's heater). It's easy to feel sympathy for the catcher when the pitcher throws the wrong pitch, but if should've been caught with ordinary effort, it's a passed ball (didn't bounce, wasn't wild, etc).

These are when you find out which team the official scorer is more of a fan. You see it more in the "hit or error" category, though.

Yup: I score them as I see them.

Next I decide if we were on offense or defense and change my mind, as that's what I've been tasked to do.

As sad as this sounds, a lot of this "post season, get your team's kids on the all this and that team" stuff is based on stats, which are kept by idiots like me and adjusted by coaches.

If you ever have a game in the Phoenix area between a team from the east and another from the west, it's always fun to see the box score the team on the east posts in their newspaper/web site and then go look at the one posted on the west side.

The over under is about 2 hits vs. errors. Makes a big difference in 30 games on ERA and BA.

I had my own son with an ERA of 3.56 last year. Maxpreps said it was 2.48.

HS stats mean nothing...