Clipping:Interpreting the stolen base scoring rule

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Date Wednesday, December 21, 1887
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[from the Boston correspondent] The stolen base rule as followed last year was a farce. It tended to increase base-running and so added one of the most pleasing features of the game, but when you come down to the scoring side it was a different thing. I could never understand why a man who started from first and went way around home on an overthrow of the catcher into centre field should be credited with three stolen bases. But that is what the rules called for. It is well enough to give the player a stolen base, perhaps, if he reaches second on an error of the catcher or second baseman, for if the man at first had not started he could not have reached second, and by giving him the stolen base it sets a premium on trying to go down to second. But the runner has no intention of going ot third on the same play. If he does get to third there must have been an error, while he might reach second without an error. … Here are their [the Boston scorers] regulations on base-running:

“That any attempt to steal a base must go to the credit of the base-runner, whether the ball is thrown wild or muffed by a fielder, and unless the base-runner is advanced more than one base no error is to be charged to the fielder. If the base-runner advances another base, the fielder allowing the advancement is to be charged with an error. If a base-runner makes a start and a battery error is made the runner secures the credit of a stolen base, and the battery error is scored against the player making it. The Sporting Life December 21, 1887

[from Ren Mulford's column] I am glad the base-stealing rule satisfies Boston, but I want to say that if any Cincinnati scorer would have given three stolen bases because a man made an error that was wor6th that many to the runner, he would be marked as a fit subject for a hearing in lunacy...

… ...under the old free-and-easy methods opinions as to what constituted a wild throw so widely differed. In over half the cities in the Association last season no wild throw was scored unless the ball was sent past the second baseman. Cincinnati and Cleveland charged their catchers with errors every time they failed to get the ball squarely into the second baseman's hands. A little high, a trifle low, or a bit too wide, counted an error for the man behind the bat. That is the reason Keenan and Baldwin rank so low among the catchers. The assembled scorers looked upon perfect throws to second as rarities—not more than fifty per cent. get there by the bee-line route—and it was finally decided to draw the line as it was laid down. I'll admit, for the sake of argument, that it is a startling departure, but it tends toward the uniform method of scoring that the Base Ball Reporters' Association...hopes to bring about. The Sporting Life December 28, 1887

Source Sporting Life
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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