Idiots Write About Sports

Yes, Jason, Phil saw the play of which you speak, and yes, it irritated him greatly, though not as much as you might expect what on account of his new pledge to not let the day-to-day up-and-down vagaries of baseball get him too worked up. (The betting line over-under on how long this pledge last, by the way, is about two days.) Also, I’m drinking more when A’s games are on, and that seems to help my mood.

Anyhow, you had a question or two?

Isn’t it a baseball axiom that you can’t award errors for mental mistakes, only physical ones? So since there were no physical mistakes (just a failure to cover), and Zito had the option to throw to first to get the easy out, why isn’t this a fielder’s choice?

To answer this question, I turned to Splitters, Beanballs, and the Incredible Shrinking Strike Zone, an excellent book co-authored by Glen Waggoner, Kathleen Moloney and Hugh Howard that does a great job explaining the rules of baseball and how they came to be. If you’d like a copy of Splitters, Beanballs, and the Incredible Shrinking Strike Zone, hie thee hither to your favorite online book-seller and order yourself a copy.

Now here’s hoping those kinds words and that plug will make up for the fact that I’m about to quote far more the book than is probably allowed under Fair Use. (The parenthetical numbers in the text below correspond a particular rule’s place in the Official Rules of Baseball, by the way.)

An error is (ordinarily) charged in the following situations:

• A muffed fly ball. (10.13a)
• A failure by a fielder to touch the bag or runner after catching a thrown or ground ball in time to put out the batter-runner or another runner on a force play. (10.13b and 10.13c)
• A wild throw that allows a runner to reach a base safely or to advance a base when a good throw would have caused the runner to be out. Only one error is charged, regardless of how many bases are advanced. (10.13d)
• A muffed catch of a throw that allows a runner to advance. (10.13e)
• The awarding of one or more bases due to defensive indifference or obstruction (10.13f)

Waggoner, et. al., go on to explain situations in which an error is not charged — a wild throw in which the runner would be safe anyhow, a wild throw on an attemp to complete a double or triple play, a dropped ball that still results in a force out, and assorted scorer’s decisions — but those aren’t really relevant to the question. Rather, Crosby was charged with an error, I would assume, because he failed to touch second base after taking Zito’s throw when doing so would have forced the runner. It’s immaterial that Crosby was several feet away from second — the runner reached because he didn’t make the play. So it’s not really considered a mental error (even though it was); under the rules of baseball, it’s a physical error.

If someone can explain to me why Zito shouldn’t have been charged with six earned runs, I’d like to hear it.

Well, that I can’t do. Though it’s not often you can give up two home runs in an inning and actually watch your ERA drop.

Jason Responds:

The problem with that rationale is that Crosby was charged with the error even though it was Scutaro that caught the ball. I enjoy physics as much as the next guy, but isn’t that taking the premise of “spooky action at a distance” a bit too far? Crosby was charged with an error for not doing anything. That seems… wrong.

Also, I don’t know how you could ever legitimately argue that Scutaro should have touched second since he was physically unable to do it “in time” — which is a distinction that’s in the rules. In the end, this play had three mental errors, I suppose: Zito should have tossed to first, Scutaro should have run toward the bag when he saw that Crosby wasn’t there, and most importantly Crosby should have stopped sucking on his glove. But those are all sins of omission — and short of claiming “defensive indifference” (which I don’t believe you can, since nobody was “awarded” the base), I don’t think that washes.