Today’s topic comes to us via text message from Tom and Dan at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia:
Q: Greetings from the home of the World Champions! Take a look at how the top of the 8th inning ended here tonight…
A: Thanks for pointing out one you don’t see every day:
With one out and runners at first and second, Kevin Kouzmanoff grounded to third base. Pedro Feliz threw to Chase Utley to get the force at second, and Utley threw the ball back to Feliz at third for the inning-ending double play. In addition to recording the 5-4-5 DP on their scoresheet, Tom and Dan must also give Kouzmanoff “credit” for a GIDP – ground into double play.
Rule 10.02(a)(17): “The official score report prepared by
the official scorer shall be in a form prescribed
by the league and shall include: Number of force double plays
and reverse-force double plays grounded into.”
Stat Crew Nation would correctly type in the above play as follows:
Batter – ”FC GDP”
Runner at first – ”X″
Runner at second – ”545″
And if it had been less than two outs, AND a runner from third scored…
…Kouzmanoff would NOT have gotten credit for an RBI
Rule 10.04(B)(1).
The fact that Kouzmanoff was not “put out” is immaterial, he hit a ground ball that resulted in a double play.
It’s a simple game. Really.
TRIVIA TIME…this play resulted in Kouzmanoff’s second GIDP of the game, but the good news for him is that he is nowhere close to the all-time record. Do you know WHO holds the all-time record for grounding into the MOST double plays in their career? Your only hint is that this Hall-Of-Famer is better known for holding another record.
Send your questions, comments, and answers to the mailbag…
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Sitting in the “big chair” prior to an OS assignment at Yankee Stadium My personal scoring knowledge is the sum of three sources:
1) Official Baseball Rules, published by Major League Baseball.
2) Official Scoring in the Big Leagues, written by Bill Shannon (2006). I had the distinct and unique privilege of being one of the “crash test dummies” for its content, as Mr. Shannon painstakingly committed his oral pedagogy to paper, which turned out to be this book. I often respectfully refer to this publication as “The Book of Shannon“. Unlike the other attempts available in published form, the author of this publication is arguably the best Official Scorer in the major leagues. I personally value the time over the years that I have observed him at work as well as the time spent listening as he held court on many occasion.
3) My life experience of watching “many” major league, minor league, and college baseball games live and in person – getting the opportunity to be the Official Scorer for a lot of them. In my opinion, functioning as a competent Official Scorer requires a thorough knowledge of the Official Baseball Rules, as well as the secondary ability to be able to find anything in the rulebook quickly that one has not committed to memory. Functioning as a successful Official Scorer requires a competent evaluation of the level of “ordinary effort” of the players competing in that particular game, as well as the ability to make correct decisions without “committee” input. While the world we live in today is all about “consensus”, baseball official scoring is NOT. Red Foley, one of the best Official Scorers of the twentieth century said it best, “We don’t make popular calls, we make correct calls”.
