[greymule]

Some of the arbitrary and illogical scoring rules cited in Tru_in_Blu's post remind me of why I lost interest in scoring at about age 12.

You can make a great play and be charged with an error, and you can make a horrible play and not be charged. You can come in in relief and get shelled and end up with a win, and you can pitch well and be charged with a loss.

I liked the (unofficial) scoring rules when I played slow pitch. If you hit the ball and reached base, you were credited with a hit. If the outfielder kicked the ball and you made it so 2B, you were credited with a double. (That ball took a bad hop, didn't it?) Even the Trenton Statesmen (the pro team) followed those guidelines.

Years ago I saw the following very common play in a MLB game on TV. Runner on 2B. Batter lines a hit to RF. Runner tries to score, and F9 throws toward home, but way over the cutoff man. The BR, seeing the high throw, keeps running and reaches 2B safely as the run scores. The great scoring expert Joe Morgan explained that the batter is credited with a double because, after rounding 1B, he didn't slow down but continued directly to 2B.