When the official score is wrong

I can certainly feel your frustration, Babs and Smash Williams. The fan in me would want the fairest possible outcome. But like Deskslave says, we have to report what's official. And if it's incorrect, run with the discrepancy. It just might make your story a lot meatier.

 

I covered a Thanksgiving high school football game one morning a few years back where a kid lunged for ball in the end zone, was under it enough to pull it close to him, landed, the ball rolled out and he scooped it back in under him, all before the officials could see it happened.

It was like a 63-14 game, but when I described that score - the first of the game - I made it clear the kid didn't catch it.

 

We just had this situation in a girls basketball game recently. During a snow make-up (we get a couple of those a year here in the Midwest) there was a scoring mixup against both teams since the regular people weren't working the game. I didn't cover it, but this is the short version from the guy who was there. They fixed one team, but screwed up the other one worse. They didn't credit a girl with a free throw that she made on the scoreboard. In the end it didn't effect anything because they would have won anyway, but a girl on the team that got screwed hit a half-courter at the buzzer. They still wouldn't have won even if the board was right, but who knows how that would have affected momentum.
So our reporter gets back to the office, calls the SE and asks our veteran reporter what to call the score in the story. He was told to go with his score because he was taking play-by-play and the scoreboard operator wasn't and could account for all the points. His biggest quandry was who to take the points from in his box if we went with the "official" score

 

Maybe this is just me, but I cannot even believe this is a debate.

 

official book is official book.

 

Agreed, but sometimes you'd like to tell the schools to at least find someone watching the game/trained to keep the official book. Often, in this area, it's students who need volunteer hours to graduate and often, the quality (or sometimes the lack thereof) shows.

 

Tracking stats in a real-time environment always results in errors. From preps to the pros. Elias, the official statistician for most of the major pro sports, will make tweaks days and weeks after a game. If newspapers re-ran a "corrected" box score from MLB or NBA every time Elias adjusted stats, well ... let's just say no one has the newshole to even attempt that.

When you know there's something wrong, approach the scorekeeper and talk it out. I would bet in most instances you can come to an agreement. If not, and you feel that the stats discrepancy is pertinent, it's fair game to mention it.

We all know how SIDs in particular cook the books so that their star players are in the best position to earn "positive media coverage" for achieving a milestone or earning all-something team accolades. It's our responsibility to make sure what we're reporting is accurate.

But, ultimately, if the school or official scorer stands firm, then even when it's wrong, it's right.

 

I fucking hate kid scorekeepers. Earlier this week, I had a dispute with the scorebook and scoreboard, which relented to the book without question. The kid keeping the home book gave a three-point shot two points just before the end of the quarter. My notes were correct with the scoreboard until they adjusted at the end of the quarter. When I questioned, they gave the "home book" response. No more than one minute before the end of the quarter, the home team was charged with a technical because he had left the name out of the team's sixth-man. Yeah, the veteran sportswriter was wrong, while the kid who can't copy down a typed roster list was correct. The home team wound up getting beat by 50 points. It would've been 49 had thier student scorekeeper actually been able to keep a straight book.

 

I think you see the "home book" flaunted more in baseball and softball, especially if it makes the difference in a kid getting a no-hitter. But rules is rules.

Think what bothers me more is when you see the rules totally misinterpreted. Covered a American Legion game once with a man on first and a fly ball was hit down the right field line. The outfielder drops the ball, but since the runner at first held, the fielder has enough time to get the force at second. I look up and see the error light flashing, so go to the booth and explain that they can't call an error in that case since an out was made. They kids running things tell me "but we're official." I reply "I don't care if you are or not, you're still wrong," left and marked the fielder's choice in my book.

 

this is what makes you lose sleep?

 

The first was what I went with (missed point didn't affect the outcome, but it did make the difference in a statistical milestone, which gave me a smooth transition to bring it up) and the second part is why it frustrated me. It's our responsibility to make sure what we put in our story is accurate, and the score, well, wasn't.

I guess it's like disputed election results, in a way. What's certified is what matters, not what actually happened.

 

Had a playoff girls basketball game last year where, compared to what had really happened, the scoreboard operator (and the scorekeeper, it turned out) had one team two points high, and the other team one point high, and the game was close ehough at the end that there was a potential for an overtime game even though the second team would have already won. Made for an interesting extra paragraph. Same scoreboard operator was there the next night, but not reading a book during the game.