by David Nemec
Ernie Lombardi’s .306 career batting average is the highest among National Leaguers who appeared in a minimum of 1,000 games as a catcher and played no other positions. Making his achievement all the more remarkable is how few of his 1,792 hits were “leg” hits.
Official scorers at games where the Lombardi alignment or the various Williams shifts were deployed took no cognizance of the defensive alterations in compiling their score reports. The same attitude continues today and is even more pervasive what with the enormous increase in exaggerated shifts for pull hitters and wannabe pull hitters.
9.03 (b)
The official scorer shall identify in the official score report any player who enters the game as a substitute batter or substitute runner, whether or not such player continues in the game thereafter, in the batting order by a special symbol that shall refer to a separate record of substitute batters and runners. The record of substitute batters shall describe what the substitute batter did. The record of substitute batters and runners shall include the name of any such substitute whose name is announced, but who is removed for another substitute before he actually gets into the game. Any such second substitute shall be recorded as batting or running for the first announced substitute.
Before 1907, American League official scorers did not always credit players with a game played if they only appeared as pinch-runners or defensive replacements. The National League did not demand that these types of substitute appearances be recorded until 1912. As a result, many players who got into games only fleetingly never saw their names in major-league box scores, and some even failed to be included in the early editions of the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia, before researchers confirmed their existence.
Mistakes and omissions in early day box scores are still being unearthed. In the early 1990s, historian Dick Thompson established that Ivan “Pete” Bigler, for many years believed to be a “phantom” player whose name appeared in a 1917 St. Louis Browns box score through a typographical error, actually participated on May 6, 1917, in a game at St. Louis that resulted in an 8–4 win for the Browns’ Alan Sothoron over Chicago. During the game in question, Bigler pinch-ran for pinch-hitter Bill Rumler, who had walked. Ironically, it was later discovered that Bigler and Sothoron were not only born in the same town—Bradford, Ohio—but had been teammates at Juniata College in Pennsylvania.
As for the nineteenth century, researchers are continually discovering new or misidentified players. Scarcely a month goes by without a name on the players’ all-time register being changed or a statistic attributed for more than a century to a certain player found actually to belong to a different player.
Today, a player is officially credited with a game played once he legally enters it—even if not a single pitch is thrown after his entry. When none are thrown before the game is stopped for rain or for any other reason, he is considered to be in the game as a batter. If a pitch is thrown before a stoppage occurs, the record reflects that he is in the game on defense.
9.04 Runs Batted In
A run batted in is a statistic credited to a batter whose action at bat causes one or more runs to score, as set forth in this Rule 9.04.
(a) The official scorer shall credit the batter with a run batted in for every run that scores
(1) unaided by an error and as part of a play begun by the batter’s safe hit (including the batter’s home run), sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, infield out or fielder’s choice, unless Rule 9.04 (b) applies;
(2) by reason of the batter becoming a runner with the bases full (because of a base on balls, an award of first base for being touched by a pitched ball or for interference or obstruction); or
(3) when, before two are out, an error is made on a play on which a runner from third base ordinarily would score.
Although RBIs did not become an official statistic until 1920, many sportswriters kept track of them on an informal basis prior to then. As far back as 1879, a Buffalo paper recorded RBIs in box scores of the Buffalo Bisons’ National League games. In the mid-1880s, Henry Chadwick, the father of baseball writers, urged the inclusion of the RBI feature in all box scores. Finally, by the early 1890s, Chadwick carried his point and National League official scores grudgingly obeyed instructions to catalog RBIs. But most found it a burden, and the practice was soon abandoned. In 1907, the New York Press revived the RBI, but it did not become an official statistic again until the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) championed its adoption in 1920.
RBI figures for most of the pre-1920 seasons have since been reconstructed from box scores and game accounts, but several American Association seasons are still incomplete, as is the entire 1884 Union Association campaign. In addition, many of the reconstructed figures are guesswork at best. A particularly significant one is the 0 RBI credited to Worcester first baseman Chub Sullivan in 1880 in 166 at-bats, which currently stands as the major league record for the most at bats in a season without an RBI. In October 2005, this author’s research established conclusively that Sullivan had at least one RBI in 1880. On May 14, at Boston, he singled home Art Whitney from third base in the ninth inning after Whitney hit an apparent home run over the left-field fence but missed third base and was allowed to return there safely when umpire Billy McLean contended that Boston pitcher Tommy Bond failed to do “what should be done” to have Whitney ruled out.
Recent research has ascertained even more significant findings. In 1961, Baltimore first baseman Jim Gentile had an RBI that went unrecorded at the time, hiking his total for the season to 141. That additional RBI enabled Gentile to tie Roger Maris for the American League RBI crown that season. Lou Gehrig’s AL season record RBI total of 184 in 1931 is also now open to question.
9.05 Base Hits
(4) the batter reaches first base safely on a fair ball that has not been touched by a fielder and that is in fair territory when the ball reaches the outfield, unless in the scorer’s judgment the ball could have been handled with ordinary effort;
There are six scenarios under which an official scorer is required to award the batter with a base hit, the value of which is determined by seven contingencies. There are also provisions under Rule 9.05 (4) when an official scorer on occasion is obliged to award a hit even though the defensive team does not make an ordinary effort to retire a batter. The most common situation occurs in a tie game with the home team at bat in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings with a runner on third and less than two out. Sometimes, when a batter hits a long fly ball that will inevitably permit the winning run to tag up and score, the defensive team will make no attempt to catch it. The official scorer customarily awards the batter a single in these cases of defensive indifference.
Probably the most infamous hit that an official scorer was forced to award owing to defensive indifference was on October 3, 1976, when two Kansas City Royals teammates, third baseman George Brett and designated hitter Hal McRae, went down to their final at-bats of the season in a game against the Minnesota Twins, neck and neck in their battle for the American League batting crown.
In the top of the ninth, the Royals trailed the Twins’ Jim Hughes, 5–2, with one out when Brett hit a routine fly ball that dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye and then bounced over Brye’s head and rolled to the wall. Before Brye could chase down the ball and relay it home, Brett tallied an inside-the-park home run, enabling him to finish the season with a .333 batting average.
McRae then stepped to the plate, also at .333, albeit a fraction of a point lower than Brett’s mark subsequent to his ITP home run. When he hit a groundball to shortstop Luis Gomez that was obviously going to result in his being thrown out, McRae angrily shouted at Twins manager Gene Mauch as he ran toward first base. McRae’s wrath swiftly brought Mauch out of the dugout. A fight nearly ensued when McRae (who was African American and Brett Caucasian) accused Mauch of ordering Brye to let Brett’s fly ball drop safely and implied a racial motivation.
Mauch denied that he had coaxed his player
s to steer the batting crown Brett’s way if the chance arose, but Brett joined in McRae’s grievance when he went on record with a statement that his fly ball definitely should have been caught. Brye later waffled, saying at first that he had misjudged the ball, but eventually he acknowledged that most American League players preferred to see Brett rather than McRae win the batting crown because Brett was a full-time player whereas McRae served as no more than a designated hitter. Whether Jim Hughes was among them, since Brett’s faux homer socked him with an earned run and later in the inning the Royals brought the tying run to the plate before being retired, is not a matter of record. In any event, it was Hughes’s final big-league start.
Rule 9.05 (a) Comment: In applying Rule 9.05 (a), the official scorer shall always give the batter the benefit of the doubt. A safe course for the official scorer to follow is to score a hit whenever normal fielding on a batted or thrown ball fails to result in a putout.
This special comment evokes the question if it applies with equal force when a no-hitter is in the making, especially in light of the commonly held belief that an official scorer is obliged to follow a rule that the first hit of a game should always be a clean one. Even though there has never been any such rule, there have been several occasions when an official scorer has gone out of his way to label a hit an error, sometimes even after the fact, in order to preserve a no-hitter.
One of the most renowned instances came in St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park on May 5, 1917, when Browns southpaw Ernie Koob won a 1–0 no-hitter over the Chicago White Sox. The official scorer, John Sheridan, was late that day getting to the park and so missed seeing Buck Weaver’s sharp grounder in the first inning that Browns second sacker Ernie Johnson, filling in for injured Del Pratt, fielded with his chest. Many newspapers the next day called the sizzler a hit as per the wire service report. But when Sheridan had time to digest what was at stake, after the game ended he took a poll of his fellow writers and players on both teams as well before electing to charge Johnson with an ex post facto error on the play. As proof that Sheridan’s decision occurred after the game was in the books, the Chicago Sunday Tribune headline the following day was KOOB TAMES SOX IN ONE HIT GAME, 1–0, evidence that the play was still considered a hit at the time the Tribune went to bed. Even St Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter W. J. O’Connor acknowledged the no-hitter was “hardly immaculate . . . it was slightly tainted, stained with doubt at its very incipiency.”
Sheridan’s handling of the situation resulted in a pledge by both Chicago and St. Louis baseball writers to safeguard the game against any more such controversial scorer’s decisions in the future. The pledge was largely forgotten by the following afternoon when Bob Groom of the Browns, after a hitless two-inning relief appearance in the first game of a twin bill, shut out the pennant-bound White Sox 3–0 in the second game and duplicated Koob’s no-hit feat in the process to mark the only time in history that two pitchers on the same team have registered no-nos on successive days.
9.07 Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing
The official scorer shall credit a stolen base to a runner whenever the runner advances one base unaided by a hit, a putout, an error, a force-out, a fielder’s choice, a passed ball, a wild pitch or a balk . . .
This introduction explains why when Rickey Henderson stole 130 bases in 1982 to break the modern record, the “modern” qualifier was added. In 1886, official scorers were instructed to credit a runner with a stolen base for every extra base he advanced of his own volition. Beginning that year, any time a runner went from first to third on a single or advanced a base on a fly ball he earned a theft that was worth as much as a steal he made on the pitcher. A runner was also credited then with a stolen base even if he ran beyond or overslid the bag he was trying for and was subsequently tagged out.
In 1887, two players in the National League and four in the American Association swiped more than 100 bases, led by Hugh Nicol of the Cincinnati Red Stockings with 138, still the all-time record. There is no way now of determining how many of Nicol’s steals fit the current definition, but it is probably significant that he averaged more than one a game and had more thefts than hits. In 125 contests, Nicol collected just 102 hits and posted a .215 batting average, lending considerable weight to the theory that he garnered a lot of steals via the old standard since he had relatively few baserunning opportunities.
In 1892, a proviso was added to the stolen base rule, spelling out that a theft would only be credited to a runner if there was either a possible chance or a palpable effort made to retire him. Eliminated were instances where a runner moved up a base on a fly ball too deep for an outfielder even to make a throw, or where a runner went from first to third on a hit into the gap while the batter loafed to a single. But there was still a lack of uniformity among official scorers. Some continued to bestow a stolen base whenever a runner hustled, while others went by the letter of the rule. As a result, the 1892 proviso was dropped before the 1897 season.
Finally, in 1898, the modern stolen base rule was adopted, removing credit for any extra bases advanced on a batted ball. Where in 1887, a runner scoring from first base on a single would have been credited with two stolen bases—third and home—now he is credited with none.
9.07 (d)
When a double- or triple-steal is attempted and one runner is thrown out before reaching and holding the base such runner is attempting to steal, no other runner shall be credited with a stolen base.
Before 1909, a runner earned a theft even if a teammate at the front or the back end of an attempted double or triple steal was nabbed.
9.07 (e)
When a runner is tagged out after oversliding a base, while attempting either to return to that base or to advance to the next base, the official scorer shall not credit such runner with a stolen base.
Likewise, when a runner becomes entangled with a fielder after successfully stealing a base but fails to maintain contact with the base in disentangling himself and is tagged while off it, the stolen base is eradicated. If, however, the runner occupies the base and then steps off it of his own accord and is tagged by a fielder essaying to pull a hidden ball trick, he receives credit for the steal.
9.07 (g)
The official scorer shall not score a stolen base when a runner advances solely because of the defensive team’s indifference to the runner’s advance. The official scorer shall score such a play as a fielder’s choice.
Until 1920, a runner could be awarded a stolen base when a defensive team was indifferent to his advance. An important point here: Making no palpable effort to nail a runner attempting to steal is not automatically characterized as indifference. Former Orioles catcher Gus Triandos, the only documented player with a perfect 1.000 steal percentage in over 1,000 games, profited from this rule. Triandos’s only career steal attempt came in the ninth inning of the second game of 1958’s season-ending doubleheader at New York on September 28 between Baltimore and the Yankees. Triandos, a right-handed hitter, batted for lefty swinger Joe Ginsberg, and singled off reliever Zach Monroe. His steal attempt was successful when the Yankees were so surprised that no throw was made. But the official scorer ruled correctly that a theft should be awarded because the situation warranted a throw. The Yankees were only ahead, 6–3, at the time and had yet to record an out in the inning.
9.08 Sacrifices
The official scorer shall:
(a) Score a sacrifice bunt when, before two are out, the batter advances one or more runners with a bunt and is put out at first base, or would have been put out except for a fielding error, unless, in the judgment of the official scorer, the batter was bunting exclusively for a base hit and not sacrificing his own chance of reaching first base for the purpose of advancing a runner or runners, in which case the official scorer shall charge the batter with a time at bat;
Rule 9.08 (a) Comment: In determining whether the batter had been sacrificing his own chance of reaching first base for the purpose of advancing a runner, the official sco
rer shall give the batter the benefit of the doubt. The official scorer shall consider the totality of the circumstances of the at-bat, including the inning, the number of outs and the score.
Having to judge whether a batter is trying to sacrifice or bunting for a base hit has been a problem for official scorers ever since 1894, when sacrifice bunts first became an official statistic and a rule was adopted not to charge a player with a time at bat on a successful sacrifice. Because the note to Rule 9.08 (a) says the batter must be given the benefit of the doubt, many times an official scorer has no option but to award a sacrifice, even though the game situation plainly indicates a batter ought to have been hitting away.
In Game 38 of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941, on June 26 at New York, with the Yankees ahead of the visiting Browns by a narrow 3–1 margin, Tommy Henrich was reluctantly credited with a sacrifice when he bunted with one out in the bottom of the eighth and Red Rolfe occupying first to stay out of a potential double play so that DiMaggio, hitless on the day, would be assured of getting one more at bat. It paid off when DiMaggio laced a two-out double off Browns starter Elden Auker to keep his streak alive. Clearly, with New York ahead, 3–1, and one out already recorded, Henrich sensibly would not be sacrificing himself but trying to ignite a rally in a game still so close, and one might question whether the Brownies’ scorer would have been so generous to Henrich had the game been played to St. Louis.