How is this not an error?

Tie game, men on 1st and 2nd, bottom 9th, 1 out.
Deep flyout to the warning track in right field for the second out. Defense concedes the tag up from 2nd to 3rd, and the cut-off man (as he should) positions himself between second base and the right fielder to take the relay and prevent a tag-up from 1st to 2nd. Right fielder fires a throw in the direction of home plate, well beyond the reach of the cut-off man. Ball rolls into the infield. Meanwhile, the runner tagging up from second is waved home. First baseman scoops it up and fires home, too late. Run scores. Game over. Official boxscore: Sac fly, RBI. Huh??? E9 all the way, right?

 

Friendly scorekeeper wanted the hometown boy to get a ribbie

 

That's got to be an error all the way.

No SF.

 

That's what I thought too. The second-hand explanation we got was that the throw wasn't intended for the cut-off man, but was actually an accurate throw to the plate (albeit one that was rolling by the time it reached clay). Of course, that's the wrong base to throw it to, but OFs throw to the wrong base all the time and don't always get charged with an error.

 

At VERY least, there is NO RBI and NO sac fly on the play. The runner advanced to home on the throw, not the batted ball.

 

Pete Incaviglia, of course, would know a little sumpin-sumpin' about missing the cutoff man. ;D

 

If it was a deep enough fly out and the guy tagged up from second and never stopped running, could it be a sac fly?

 

I suppose, but I've never heard of it. Although, the official rules of baseball don't specifically state that a runner can only score from third on a sac fly:

10.09
e) Score a sacrifice fly when, before two are out, the batter hits a fly ball or a line drive handled by an outfielder or an infielder running in the outfield which

(1) is caught, and a runner scores after the catch

I just think you'd have to be a damn generous scorer to give an RBI on the above described play.

 

I thought I'd heard of it in a MLB game before, but I could just be remembering a drunken game of Baseball Stars.

 

You have to account for every base.

Therefore, it has to either be a two-base SF or an error. And there's no way it's a two-base SF unless the runner was running the entire way, without hesitation. As soon as he hesitates or pulls up, it becomes a throwing error.

 

I would think that would be scored as the runner advancing to third on the fly ball, then home on the error. It's not a two-base error, right? Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things.

As for scoring from second on a fly ball, I see no reason why that wouldn't be possible, at least in theory. It would be exceedingly difficult , but not impossible.

 

I'm not sure it's an error though. The right fielder CHOSE to throw home rather than to the cutoff man.