Clipping:Commentary on scoring
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| Date | Saturday, March 10, 1883 |
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| Text | For some years past there has been a decided waste of figuring indulged in in recording the scores of baseball matches. Experience has shown that all that is essential in the recording of a match-game for publication is simply the amount of figures necessary for data in making p the season’s averages of a player. Now, what comprises a players’s averages to be used in judging his skill alike at the bat and in his special fielding position? Simply his average of first-base hits applied to his batting and his average of putting out players–or assisting to put them out in fielding–arrived at by comparing the chances offered him with those accepted. The figures required for this data are merely those used in recording times at bat, base-hits made–not total, but single–and the number of chances offered for putting players out in the game and the number of such chances accepted. The score of runs indicates nothing of material import, as runs are more frequently scored by the batting of succeeding players, or by fielding-errors, than by skill in base-running, runs scored by the latter being exceptional plays. Add to the figures used in recording the above data those showing the runs made in each inning, the number of times the batting side made first base by fielding-errors, the total runs earned on each side, and the total fielding-errors by each nine, and the record is complete, so far as is needed for publication or for ordinary averages data. For a special record there should be the figures showing the sacrifice-hits made–hits made which, though putting the batsman out, afford the base-runner a chance to score a run or to secure an extra base–as also bases stolen. The pitcher’s score, too, should be a special record, showing what assistance–not fielding, but pitching–had been rendered in the form of outs on strikes. The catcher, also, should have a special score showing the record of bases scored on passed balls or on poor throws to bases. By confining the score-sheet figures for publication to the record of chances offered and chances accepted ,while every error in the game, as well as every good play which bears upon the record of chances for putting out opponents offered and accepted is duly recorded, no errors are directly charged to each fielder in the printed score-sheet, as is the case under the existing rule. Certainly, the present method of scoring the game and preparing scores for publication is faulty in the extreme, and it is calculated to drive players into playing for their records rather than for their side, especially as regard their batting. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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