Does the home book rule?

well, holy shit. I think we established this in like the third post of this thread.

 

yeah, the length:interesting content ratio got a little out of whack in this thread. My apologies.

 

I think your wrong here. This isn't formal college athletics with record books kept immaculate and a standard of competent and consistent score keeping. If the writer can independently verify the information through observation, the journalist is the final authority. Case closed, it's our job to record information. If I call it a 1-hitter, and the school calls it a no-hitter, I think you go to the visiting team and ask them what they think out of courtesy. If they agree it was a no-hitter, then I would probably defer. But, if they say that was a hit, then I go with my instinct.

It does lead me to a major point however -- no hitters at the high school level are a dime a dozen. If it's a perfect game, then i may blow it up. Perfect game is major, no hitter? If you weren't there and can't verify the authenticity of the call-in, I would be very careful.

If you know that a play is a hit, but the home book says error, by reporting it an error you are providing an inaccurate description of the game. Obviously, if there is a dispute, it's your job to rectify that somehow in your story.

 

Jfs, excellent post. I think you spelled it out very well. As per the example I gave earlier, if I watch the left fielder drop a can-of-corn fly ball and the high school kid keeping their book marks it down as a hit, I'm still calling it an error in my story.

Now if it's a close call, I will ask the coach. I had a game where a one-hitter was thrown by one of my main schools. The only hit was an infield one and it could have gone either way. I asked the coach his opnion after the game. He would have liked for his pitcher get a no-hitter but he felt like the play in question was definitely a hit. That's what I went with and there were no complaints.

We do have a collegiate summer wooden bat team in the area and sometimes I am designated as the official scorer. There is no designation of that sort in high school games here.

 

And I've got to maintain that being an official scorer is a conflict of interest -- if you're covering the game. You are becoming part of the story.

 

And I maintain that at a high school game -- at least all of them that I've ever covered -- there is no official scorer. You're on your own.

 

And here's the problem -- A lot of times the "official" scorer is the home coach, who might bark at the kid who is keeping the book to call that an error. Of course he's going to try to help his pitcher. I ran into a very similar situation as topsheep at my last stop. Kid throws what the home coach believes to be a no-hitter. The hit in question was a scorched line drive down the third base line that landed near the bag. Third baseman was playing the hitter, a lefty, to pull. Lefthanded third baseman had to dive well out of his area and didn't get a glove on the ball. Not sure Brandon Inge makes that play. Home coach says it's an error to preserve the no-no. Road coach says, "are you kidding me?" I saw it with my eyes. It's a hit. That's what I reported.

Shot's got a point too ... at its heart, being the official scorer of the game is a conflict of interest.

 

Bingo.

One of my responsibilities as an umpire is to sign the home team's book after the game. Once I've done that, I can then leave the field.

 

So I'm assuming when you cover a high school football game, you don't publish any stats until the following day, after the home coaches have had a chance to review the film and track the stats that way?

Because, if you are keeping your own stats, and you've just written that Johnny Touchdown ran for 123 yards ... you're making yourself part of the story.

Or, do these rules only apply to baseball?

 

Yardage is objective. A hit/error call in baseball is subjective, no matter how 'sure' anyone is that they are calling it right.

 

I'm not so sure. Three people could be keeping stats at the same football game and I can guarantee you none of them would come up with the exact same numbers.

 

That's attributable to human error, not written into the rules that they have discretion.