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Report results accurately and fairly

By Rob Burchianti rburchianti@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read
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First, let me say we in the Herald-Standard sports department appreciate when you call in results to us.

With 16 high schools and a three-man staff we depend heavily on phone calls to help us write up stories. Obviously, we can’t cover every game ourselves.

Having said that, please, all you coaches and scorekeepers out there, try to be accurate. An erroneous report can present an inaccurate picture of what happened and may heap blame on an innocent kid.

Let me go through a couple scenarios.

One glaring example came recently when a baseball game was called in. It was reported that two passed balls occurred in one inning with the second one allowing the lone run of the game to score.

Clearly the catcher, who was not named, was portrayed as the scapegoat.

The only problem was that particular game ended up being televised on a local channel a couple days later. I casually watched as the deciding inning unfolded … and was dismayed to see the run scored on a pitch that was off the plate and had bounced past the catcher. You could clearly see dirt kick up a good two feet in front of him.

For those who don’t know basic baseball, any pitch that bounces in the dirt and results in a runner advancing is considered a wild pitch.

It’s not a judgment call, it’s a fact. If you’ve ever watched a major league baseball game you would know this.

I’ve covered dozens of major league games and am a former member of the Baseball Writer’s Association of America, so trust me, I know. That’s just a basic baseball scoring rule at all levels. Ball in dirt. Runner advances. Standard ruling: wild pitch.

A passed ball should be ruled when a pitch in the air that should be handled by the catcher without an unreasonable effort, eludes him. If there’s any doubt, the ruling is almost always a wild pitch.

The catcher was not at fault in this instance. Anyone watching the game could clearly see that. Even the broadcaster said it was the pitcher’s second wild pitch of the inning.

The pitcher hurled an outstanding game but, nonetheless, it was his wild pitch that allowed the winning run to score, and that’s how it should have been reported.

So the item that we ran on our sports page and on our website was misleading and, well, just basically wrong.

What happened?

Hopefully, it was just an honest mistake by an inexperienced scorekeeper that went uncorrected, and the head coach, who called it in, didn’t recall the inning exactly and just went with what was written in the scorebook.

In any case, the end result was the catcher, unfortunately, being incorrectly portrayed as having cost his team the game.

I do realize being a scorekeeper isn’t easy. I used to be one in high school. Players and parents would try to influence how I’d score a game, and some would get downright angry when I refused to alter what I thought was an accurate scoring decision. So, unfortunately, I know stuff like that occurs on occasion.

One shouldn’t have ulterior motives when reporting a game, but a second example from years ago showed me that certainly happens.

On that day, I had covered a baseball game involving two local teams, talked to both head coaches and headed into the office to write.

As I began to type my story, someone from the winning team who didn’t realize I had been at the game, called in to report the result. I let him do so just to double-check what I had. Interestingly, he told me one of the players on his team went 4 for 4.

I halted him and said I was there, the player only had two singles and also reached on an error and a fielder’s choice. He disagreed. I didn’t budge.

The error that the caller claimed was a hit was a grounder that went through the shortstop’s legs. Sorry, pal. Not a hit.

He then insisted that the fielder’s choice was a hit because the player reached base and no one got out.

Wrong again, buddy.

A fielder’s choice, for those who don’t know, is just what it sounds like. An infielder snags a grounder and, instead of throwing out the batter, chooses to try to record an out at another base. The batter may reach base but it is not a hit, regardless of whether the fielder got an out at a different base or not.

In this instance, he threw home too late to get the runner breaking from third.

RBI, yes. Hit, no.

So then the caller showed his true colors. Listen, he told me, this kid is trying to get a scholarship and every extra hit matters, so why not give him a break?

Well, I told him, the pitcher might want to get into college, too. Pad your hitter’s stats and that means I’m taking away from the pitcher’s stats. He gave up five hits, not seven, and one earned run, not four. That’s a big difference.

So remember that folks when you’re keeping score for a game and/or calling it in.

We understand that honest mistakes are made sometimes. Just try your best to give us an accurate account of what happened. Remember, altering scoring decisions to benefit one player may wind up hurting another innocent kid. Please be fair and ethical.

That’s all we ask.

Rob Burchianti can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com. Follow him on Twitter (@rvburch).

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