This is more a scoring thing than an officiating note, but I'd like to hear your opinions. This happened in a South Atlantic League single A game tonight. No one on, batter hits a ball to the shortstop and is running hard to beat the throw. The shortstop throws it away from the first baseman, but the runner, running hard, runs over first base without touching it. On a perfect bounce of the fence the first baseman retrieves the ball and tags out the runner. The scorer had an error on the play even though the runner never legally acquired first base. Your thoughts?

When the runner passed the base he legally acquired it, and an appeal was required to get him out.

I would give him an error, when the BR passed first, he is considered to have touched the base, but liable to be put out upon appeal. So basically I'm saying I really don't know what the ruling is. But I think he is right in giving an error.

Sounds like an E6 if a good throw would have retired the runner. If he never legally touched the base, and was tagged out on appeal I can't see giving him a single on the play either.

There are a number of ways to score it, but E6 and then some variation of a note that credits a putout to the first baseman unassisted and makes reference to how the out occured. For my advanced scorers, such as myself, who like to keep a detailed record of the game, a scratch sheet of paper or even a place on the scorebook/card to make additional notes would be a place to write something to the effect of E6 R1 (usually noted by jersey # of R1) UAPO3 on overrun of 1b (UAPO3=Unassited put out firstbaseman). You can of course get even more detailed, but for the official scorer he must credit an Error because the runner was allowed to advance a base past where he would have had the error not been commited and a Putout to the firstbaseman to account for the out (all outs come via a putout, even the "weird" calls of baseball such as the interferences and intentionally dropped balls). The only other option which I haven't mentioned is that if it was really close score a hit and then the 6-3 is a possible way to score this play, but not likely to get alot of votes.

I'd score it 6-3. F6 gets a break with the missed base. BR is considered to have touched 1B only for considering awards and touching bases in the correct order. But after the appeal he is not credited with having touched 1B.

If F1 has a perfect game going with 2 out in the 9th, and the batter hits one over the fence but is called out on appeal for missing 1B, F1 gets his perfect game on an incredible break. Nobody reached first safely.

[Edited by greymule on Jun 7th, 2004 at 06:48 AM]