
The Error in Baseball and the Moral Dimension of American Life - bkohlmann
https://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/the-error-in-baseball-and-the-moral-dimension-to-american-life
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DrScump
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.

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

