Who gets the error??

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Apr 4, 2010
140
0
Tucson AZ
No outs, nobody on. Short infield pop fly dropping 4 feet in front of the baseline, in the 3-4 gap. Pitcher is going back to make the catch, second is moving in to make the catch, neither one calls the ball. Both sense the collision coming at the last second, pitcher stops, ball goes in to seconds glove but she drops it. Who gets the error on the play?
 
Jun 11, 2013
2,628
113
If you give an error it would have to be 2B. The question is should 2nd have caught the ball. If she dove at the last second and dropped it it would be a hit, but if she just dropped it it's an error. Even if P should have caught it , no error on P (remember it's always the fielders fault :)
 
Apr 4, 2010
140
0
Tucson AZ
There was no diving involved. It was a high pop fly that should have been an easy catch. They both probably deserve an error for not communicating with each other!:(
 
Jun 11, 2013
2,628
113
There is no team error although I wish there was. In this case even after all the not calling you have to determine if 2B should have caught the ball based on her final position and if the answer is yes it's her error. If because of the confusion she was in a tough position to catch it, it could be a hit. In the end it's the 2B ball and she needs to call off P and make the catch so it's a fair error.
 
Jun 27, 2011
5,088
0
North Carolina
No outs, nobody on. Short infield pop fly dropping 4 feet in front of the baseline, in the 3-4 gap. Pitcher is going back to make the catch, second is moving in to make the catch, neither one calls the ball. Both sense the collision coming at the last second, pitcher stops, ball goes in to seconds glove but she drops it. Who gets the error on the play?

The mental error of not calling the ball is irrelevant.

It cannot be an error on the pitcher since you state that the second baseman is the one who dropped it.

Question: Did the fear of a collision cause the second baseman to miss the ball?

If so, it's a hit, IMO.

People have a hard time accepting that popups to the infield can be hits, but they can be when circumstances (such as wind, sun, indecision and other mental errors) make them difficult to catch.
 
Sep 20, 2012
154
0
SE Ohio
The mental error of not calling the ball is irrelevant.

It cannot be an error on the pitcher since you state that the second baseman is the one who dropped it.

Question: Did the fear of a collision cause the second baseman to miss the ball?

If so, it's a hit, IMO.

People have a hard time accepting that popups to the infield can be hits, but they can be when circumstances (such as wind, sun, indecision and other mental errors) make them difficult to catch.

I don't really agree with this. This *could* be true if keeping official book for a higher level team. But if I'm using my book to remember what the plays were and where my team needs work, I'm scoring this as an E4 with a notation that it is a shared mental error with pitcher. Recording that this is a hit doesn't remind me of the play, and, more importantly, skews the stats to make a mistake seem normal.

Bookkeeping, imo, should be almost brutal. Player doesn't get to a ball because they were lazy? Error. Player misses a ball because they played it to the side instead of head on? Error. Ball drops because of no communication? Error. This gives me the feedback so that when I go to practices, I have a blueprint on what needs worked on.
 
Apr 4, 2010
140
0
Tucson AZ
The mental error of not calling the ball is irrelevant.

It cannot be an error on the pitcher since you state that the second baseman is the one who dropped it.

Question: Did the fear of a collision cause the second baseman to miss the ball?

If so, it's a hit, IMO.

People have a hard time accepting that popups to the infield can be hits, but they can be when circumstances (such as wind, sun, indecision and other mental errors) make them difficult to catch.

I guess this is the problem with scoring errors. When does a mental error translate into an error in the score book? If you are playing at the 12uA level, and a girl lets an easy ground ball go between her legs, I would say she made a mental error, that also equals an error in the book.

As the coach, I'm not getting hung up on how the error was recorded. I know that they both are going to hear about it from me. Easy plays screwed up because of something as simple as calling the ball are silly mistakes to make. Address it and move on. The question is really more for myself. I think that if you have not left your feet, or at a full sprint to get to the ball, and the ball goes into your glove then back out, you have committed an error regardless of the other variables. However, I admittedly have been wrong in my thinking a time or two.
 
Jun 27, 2011
5,088
0
North Carolina
I guess this is the problem with scoring errors. When does a mental error translate into an error in the score book? If you are playing at the 12uA level, and a girl lets an easy ground ball go between her legs, I would say she made a mental error, that also equals an error in the book.

Ball through the legs isn't purely a mental error, IMO. Players' hands/glove betrayed her. I know we teach girls to get the glove down, but it's still the glove (hand) that messed up. We could make a similar claim that a dropped ball was a mental error - should've squeezed it, or should've been more focused, or should've caught it the pocket of the glove, etc.

On the popup, that's more purely a failure to take charge. More mental, IMO. Also, a scorekeeper isn't charged with deciding who's fault it was, who should've called it, or covered which base. Even if there's little debate. That brings too much gray area into it. That's why mental errors aren't errors. Too hard in many cases to define. The harder something is to define, the harder it will be to have consistent rulings.

I don't want to tell teams how to keep their own records. Scorekeeper can rule that as two errors if that provides the coaches with more useful information. Makes sense, and I don't have an issue with it. But those stats don't have any real meaning outside of the team, unless you say, ''Jessica batted .376, but be aware that we have our own method of scoring that deviates from the official rules.''
 

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