Does the home book rule?

OK, here's a thought.

Say the official book called it a no-hitter ... and yet, say that there was disagreement with the call. Spell it out. Make them see it was a bad call.

 

This is the crux of the argument. I don't know where you are covering high school baseball, but the games I covered back in the day, there wasn't any book I'd deem to be "official." They were all done by JV kids who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

You can say, "Well just use the home JV kid. That one's official," but that will often leave you open to instances as you described ... reporting facts YOU KNOW TO BE LIES in the newspaper ...

Once had a JV kid who thought all errors counted as hits. Had one who thought you got credit for a hit when you walked, or got hit by a pitch.

I'm supposed to go with that, when I know better?

As I've mentioned before, I've seen home books for basketball not even add up to the correct final score. I'm supposed to just go with that?

Not a lot of schools I've covered keep their own football stats. The ones that do invariably don't know some of the more arcane rules (touchdowns also count as first downs, for instance; or you don't get the yardage on a two-point conversion). Had one "scorekeeper" try to convince me that, on a forward pass, the quarterback gets credit for the drop back -- if it's 3rd and 10, he takes a seven-yard drop and completes a pass to the sticks, it's a 17-yard gain.

I ask again, I'm supposed to go with that? Really?

 

If the scorer doesn't know the basic rules, then I'm guessing they aren't turning the book in to any central league office and there really isn't an "official" book at all.

But again, no matter what baseball tradition says, there is no hard definition of an error. If there's someone there whose official job it is to make that judgment, defer to them, no matter how inflated your own ego is with your knowledge of baseball.

 

This is my point. Where I'm from, there is no "central league office" that high schools turn their stats or books into. If there is anything close to that, well, it's our newspaper.

There is no person who's official job it is to keep the book. A reporter would be a closest thing to that there is. Which has been my point all along.

Furthermore, I'm not the one who was arguing with you about the definition of an error, so you can take your condescension and shove it.

Frankly, if you're having that much trouble keeping up with who is who on this thread, it might be a good idea for you to defer to the high school kids on the book after all.

 

If you don't think a paragraph applies to you, assume it wasn't directed at you.

If there's no official book, then there's no official book, and we have no argument about using your own. But if there is, then use it.

 

Uhhh....I guess this thread has THOROUGHLY answered my question. Draw down, gentlemen. Obvious this is not going anywhere. I do have a question for the writer who called it a one-hitter when the home book had it as a no-hitter ... say they were calling the game in, that you were not there to witness the play in question. You would have went with the no-hitter because that is what the "official" book had. You want to report the truth and be true to the game of baseball, I would say you probably should stop accepting call-ins because I guarantee you would have issues with how things were scored constantly by a lot of these home books. Just something to think about.

 

carlton, we've said that we take the best information available. if you weren't there, you've gotta take the call. but if you see what happened, you report it. we are talking high school here. there isn't, in any place I've been, a 'central office' with some paid scorekeeper that staffs games. so if I'm at the game, I am the record. I am official. just how it is. don't see the problem.

 

(had a call-in the other night, in fact, where coach says 'well, she wrote down four errors, but I know we had at least five ... ' clearly, this is a team manager I should trust above my own abilities whenever I staff them next. she may be the home book, ya know.)

 

If they call in with a no-hitter, you say it's a no-hitter in the wrap-up or however your present the story.

When I cover a baseball game, I'm my own -- very thorough -- book and decipher the gray areas.

 

It's a tough situation. What I try to do is get to the game early enough to get a gauge on the scorekeeper and determine if he or she is someone I can trust if there is a problem. In baseball, I'm not going to miss a play, but in basketball, it's very possible I could miss something when I'm writing something.

So for me, it helps to know the scorekeeper and decide early on if I need to be extra-focused on getting stats, or if I can just watch the game for other interesting things, knowing the scorer can bail me out if I do miss something while I'm looking for other aspects of what my story will become.

I've definitely seen it go both ways. At one game, I talked with both scorekeepers, and it was obvious that the scorekeeper for the home team took her job very seriously, while the visiting team's scorer couldn't care less. I remember thinking to myself, "Thank God Battlefield is the home team tonight and not Stonewall Jackson."

 

If you get a call-in from the home team's coach and the visiting team's coach calls to dispute what was reported in the paper, how do you handle it?

 

Arriving way too late on this, but I'd write it as a no-hitter, and you bet your ass I'll mention the home-school scoring. If you take stats from the teams all season, the no-no will be reflected on what you get from the school.

On that point, when I was doing preps, one basketball coach instructed his scorers to, when a player was fouled in the act of shooting and made at least one free throw, to credit an assist to the guy who passed the fouled player the ball.

I would get stat sheets from one baseball team, done on computer, where the batting averages listed were about 20 points higher than when I divided hits by ABs. I put the "true" averages in the area leaders, and was told I was wrong by one kid, the eventual player of the year. I told him, hey, do the math.

On the other hand, I guess if I was willing to fix the batting averages, I should be willing to "fix" a blatant bad scoring decision.